Critically acclaimed author Mike Knowles receives THREE STARRED REVIEWS with his newest crime novelPrivate detective Sam Jones's six-year search for an eight-year-old boy ends with gunshots in a basement and cold bodies that would eventually lead the police straight to him. Jones had never promised Ruth Verne that he would find her son alive, but he knew deep down that she believed he would — worse, he had believed it too. Jones wasn't ready to look Ruth in the eye and tell her he had failed. He wasn't ready to admit that he lost everything and had nothing to show for it.But an unsigned note scrawled on a bathroom door gives Jones a second chance — a chance for redemption. Thirteen words left by a young girl in trouble give him someone to chase and a reason to keep moving before the cops move on him. Jones follows the trail from an idyllic small town to the darkest corners of the city, running from the boy he failed toward the girl he could still save.

Three crooked cops going straight after a murdererWoody was working on getting high when the phone rang. Dennis was on a date — it was a date he paid for, but a date all the same. Os had blood on his hands from a little extracurricular law enforcement. All three men picked up their phones because they were cops, and cops are never really off-duty — not even when they're crooked.Detective Julie Owen was savagely killed in her own bed, and the unborn child she was carrying is nowhere to be found. The grisly crime has the brass breathing down the necks of the three detectives tasked with finding Julie's killer. Woody, Dennis, and Os each shared a bond with Julie that went deeper than the blue of their uniforms and have their own reasons to want to find the person responsible for her murder. Secrets drive the investigation — secrets that need to stay buried long enough to solve the case.

"Merciless but honest about being monstrous, Wilson is worthy to stand next to Loren Estleman's Peter Macklin and Donald Westlake's Parker." — Publishers WeeklyA phone call brought Wilson and nine other men to a job in New York. At first, he couldn't see a way to make the heist work, but the score — millions of dollars in diamonds — kept him looking. Wilson came up with a plan he knew would work . . . until the inside man got killed and took the job with him.With no way inside, the crew walks away without the diamonds. Alone, Wilson is free to execute the job his way. Wilson sets a con in motion that should run as predictably as a trail of dominoes — except the con doesn't rely on inanimate tiles, it relies on people.Wilson pushes all of the pieces across the board only to find out that there are other players making their own moves against him. Everyone is playing to win and no one is willing to walk away because the job is about...

From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Razor-edged prose and a sympathetic antihero lift Knowles's no-holds-barred crime thriller, the sequel to Darwin's Nightmare (2008), which introduced the mob enforcer known only as Wilson. Wilson has left behind the person he was in Hamilton, Ont., where he worked for mob boss Paolo Donati. He's found a new life on Prince Edward Island as a hired hand on a fishing boat. Unfortunately, after Wilson's attempt to aid a dying politician results in his photo being splashed across Canadian front pages, Donati sends a thug to find him. Though Wilson is easily able to dispatch his tracker, he realizes he can't further endanger the people he has come to care for in his new community. He returns to Hamilton to locate those responsible for the disappearance of Donati's nephews. While not for those uncomfortable with gore, readers who like their mean streets really mean will be thoroughly satisfied. (Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review"Razor-edged prose and a sympathetic antihero lift Knowles's no-holds-barred crime thriller."  —Publishers Weekly, starred review"Verdict: Knowles combines nonstop action with gritty violence to hold the reader's attention. For fans of hard-boiled mysteries."  —Library Journal"With lots of action and tension and plenty of dialogue, Wilson's story moves along rapidly as he struggles to cut his ties to the past."  —Booklist"This is a good first novel, particularly as a counterweight to the often flaccid mysteries this country produces. Crime fans will enjoy the book and should watch for [Knowles'] next offering."  —Driven Magazine"The action is hard and raw and savage, and the characters are about as deliciously nasty as you'd expect."  —January Magazine"[Knowles] is a good atmospheric writer and he has the lingo down."  —Globe & Mail"Grinder displays some nascent storytelling chops and a viable future for the Hamilton schoolteacher."  —Winnipeg Free Press"The action is straight, hard, and fast, and the characters are as sharply etched as this stuff gets."  —Mystery Scene

Mob enforcer Wilson returns for the fifth installment of this taut, gritty crime seriesWilson should have just walked away when three men came looking for a way to boost a valuable piece of art. But the heist was more than just a job for Wilson; it was a chance to get off the sidelines and back in the game. The art came off the wall, the alarm screamed thief, and Wilson walked away clean. But it turned out that job was an interview for an even bigger heist. A dangerous man wants Wilson to get him something more valuable than a painting. Problem is Wilson only has a week. Wilson and his crew crosses the border to Buffalo to steal a 200-year-old violin. Four men cross, but four don't come back. A lot of people are interested in getting their hands on the instrument and none of them are shy about killing to get it. The job starts like a bad joke — a thief, a con man, a wheel man, and a gangster get in line to cross the border — but the Buffalo job doesn't end with...

Wilson has spent his entire life under the radar. Few people know who he is and even less know how to find him. Only two people even know his real occupation, carrying out confidential—and illegal—jobs for a very bad man. But one day he crosses the line, saving his friends and earning the hatred of a vengeful mob boss.

Heists, double crosses, and brutality drive this fast - paced fourth installment of the Wilson Mystery seriesAn armoured car carrying a huge payday will be rolling through the city every Friday for four weeks. Out of money, Wilson takes up with Ruby, an old partner, for a job that promises a huge score. The only problem: Ruby's kid, Rick, wants in on the deal. Rick is everything Wilson isn't but without him there is no job. Wilson signs on with the condition that he runs the job; he plans it, supplies it, and staffs it. The job is a success, but so is the double cross. Wilson loses the money and almost his life. He sets out after his partners and learns that nothing was ever as it seemed - nothing but the blood on the ground. Honour among thieves is bullshit, but Ruby and her son should have known better than to try and play another man's game.About the AuthorMike Knowles studied writing at McMaster University before pursuing a career in education. He became an elementary teacher and currently teaches in Hamilton where he lives with his wife and dog. Darwin's Nightmare is his first novel.

Wilson thought he had acquired freedom from being a gritty, gruesome criminal when a car accident puts him back in the crosshairs. This time, dirty cops use him as bait, telling him the only way to stay out of cuffs is to put someone worse in them. Knowing that justice isn’t blind in the city, Wilson picks a fight with the Russian mob to lure both the corrupt cops and brutal robbers into a trap, scavenging once again for his freedom. Full of gory conflict, this latest in the Wilson Mystery series offers nonstop action and savage violence.From BooklistWilson, the Mob enforcer who appeared in Darwin’s Nightmare (2008) and Grinder (2009), is not a happy man. No surprise there—he’s always been a bit of a glass-half-empty kind of guy—but this time he has got a good reason. Some crooked cops are using him as a lure to nab some very bad people, and Wilson can think of only one way out of the predicament: to pit the cops and their prey against each other, letting them take each other out. Sounds like a good plan, but can he pull it off and somehow manage to stay alive? Knowles’ novels echo writers who have come before him—Richard Stark, for example, or Jim Thompson—but they’re not imitations. Wilson isn’t Stark’s Parker, and the author’s bare-bones prose doesn’t sound like Thompson’s. And the setting certainly freshens up the proceedings, too: you don’t see a lot of noirish crime dramas set in Hamilton, Ontario. For noir fans, a must-read. --David Pitt Review"Gunfights and well-choreographed scenes of carnage abound . . . This is pure, visceral action." —Publishers Weekly"There's nothing prissy, genteel, or insincere in Mike Knowles' work — prose so spare it flirts with cruelty, that cuts scalpel-clean and just as precise, and crackles with the kind of talent and energy that not only makes it difficult to put down, but that sends you frantically looking for his next book. Hard-boiled, hard-edged, hard-core, but never once crossing into parody or pastiche. There is power here, and Knowles knows how to use it."  —Greg Rucka, author, the Atticus Kodiak crime fiction series"Think Canadian crime fiction is soft? Mike Knowles proves otherwise, in this tense, terse, bloody-knuckled thriller. Knowles doesn't do nice—and his antihero, Wilson, makes Mike Hammer look like a well-adjusted pacifist. A kick in the nuts with steel-toed boots."  —Sean Chercover, author, Trigger City and Big City, Bad Blood"Knowles’s prose is appropriately terse and utilitarian, enhancing the grinder’s menace. Wilson is a bad guy you can root for, because the other bad guys – not to mention the cops – are so much worse . . . Wilson’s raw brutality draws readers in, and the book’s frenetic pace is enough to keep them hooked until the bloody climax."  —Quill & Quire"[Knowles] is a good atmospheric writer and he has the lingo down."  —Globe and Mail"In Plain Sight comes at you like a tsunami—hard, relentless, fast. Knowles is exploring invigorating new pathways in Canadian thriller-noir writing."  —Hamilton Spectator