International Women’s Day 2026

Most of my reading this week is about Medusa, for a project. Gratuitous photo, because she is everywhere:

My list of 20 current favourite Canadian women crime writers, in no particular order, and their sub-genre/s:

Amy Stuart: domestic suspense fiction set in urban and suburban areas, with a strong sense of woman-in-peril

Louise Penny: what gave it away? a hybrid of police procedural, cozy, and international intrigue, with her unique twist, set in Montreal/Three Pines (a fictional evocation of Eastern Townships small communities, such as Knowlton and Sutton)

Gail Bowen: one volume left to go in a series that has kept me reading for decades; amateur investigator in Regina, Saskatchewan, a wife/mother/professor/community activist

L.R. Wright: a life and writing career cut short, but brilliant psychologically-infused and deeply insightful police procedurals set on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast

Janice MacDonald: two series with very distinctive protagonists–her earlier Randy Craig series, with an Edmonton-based amateur investigator, and her recent Imogene Durant mysteries, featuring a retired prof who’s enjoying European adventures

Kathy Reichs: being claimed as Canadian, here, due to the Montreal setting of many of her forensic anthropologist series

Ausma Zehanat Khan: a Canadian ex-pat now living in the U.S., Khan writes searching, politically-driven crime fiction featuring an exceptionally interesting mismatched pair of police investigators who focus on crimes linked to multicultural and politically sensitive issues

Maureen Jennings: Murdoch Mysteries is good TV, but these are the real thing, a set of historically authentic police procedurals in turn of the century Old Toronto

Alice Walsh: a Nova Scotia writer whose Newfoundland and Labrador mysteries provide lots of regional appeal alongside solid stories

Margaret Millar: try her! She’s one of the earliest important Canadian women crime writers, and some of her books are set here

Rosemary Aubert: I’ve been re-reading her novels and will have more to say about her engagingly imperfect protagonist, a disgraced judge, in a future post

Mary Jane Maffini: she publishes more novels than I can keep up with, but I especially like her books featuring a victim advocate, set in Ottawa

Barbara Fradkin: also set in Ottawa, my favourite of her series has a male, Jewish police investigator who struggles to balance his personal and professional lives

Alison Gordon: back in the late 1980s, she was one of the first Canadian women crime writers I discovered, and her sportswriter-amateur investigator is lots of fun; this series holds up, and I wish it was longer

Pat Capponi: like Khan, she wrote socially and politically engaged mystery novels, although her milieu is the disenfranchised loose-but-loving community of ex-psychiatric patients

Eve Zaremba: arguably the first mainstream lesbian detective, Helen Keremos remains a fascinating character, all these decades later

Chrystine Brouillet: in need of English-language translation! a terrific police procedural series with a complicated protagonist

Johanne Seymour: ditto, essentially; it’s criminally unjust that these wonderful books aren’t available in English, but there is a (French-language with subtitles) TV adaptation

Chevy Stevens: a local (to Vancouver Island) writer of fast-paced suspense novels

Anne Emery: a fascinating series of police procedurals that moves between Halifax and Ireland

Links and more details to come, as time permits.

I need to finish emptying the kitchen cupboards so that demolition can begin tomorrow.