The Solitary Friend

Crime Writers Grand Master Award winner and the “queen of Canadian crime fiction” (Winnipeg Free Press) returns with the 23rd, and penultimate, installment in the Joanne Kilbourn series.

Amateur sleuth Joanne Shreve finds herself caught in the middle when her friend Vera Wang, the owner of a discreet escort service, The Right Woman, calls in a favor. Howard Dowhanuik, another long-time friend of Joanne’s and the former premier of Saskatchewan, has been a loyal client for years. That is until he started badgering Vera’s employees, trying to discourage them from performing their “meaningless” work. Given his recent verbal attacks against any and all opponents on his podcast, Joanne knows his erratic behavior must be part of a larger issue. Can Joanne talk Howard down and make him see sense before he goes too far?

To complicate matters, the release of scandalous photos with threatening demands targets both Howard and Calista Wallace. Having quit the escort service, Calista is now engaged to Noah Wainberg, a close member of Joanne’s inner circle, but the past could put their future together in jeopardy. Is this hate mail from a heartbroken ex-client or a disgruntled listener of Howard’s podcast? Or worse, could the culprit be someone closer to home? With her loved ones’ happiness — and their very lives — at stake, Joanne races to find the source of the mysterious messages before they make good on their menacing ultimatum.