Seldom Seen Road

Seldom Seen Road is the first in the Burnt River series of murder mysteries featuring the Roth family detective trio. When the body of local environmental activist Paul Robichaud washes up on the bank of a river in the small northern town of Burnt River, blunt-force wounds to his head suggesting murder, Mark Roth is jarred out of his retirement reverie and drawn into the mystery. Who dumped Robichaud into the frigid spring run-off? Is there a connection between his death and both the largest uranium refinery in the world and the local small-time pot trade? How do Robichaud's wife, Kim Keranen, daughter Algoma, local real estate developer Gillian Larch, and her pot-head son Bobby fit into the puzzle? And who is The Albanian? Mark Roth has the least solid claim on the art of solving murders, but he is driven by the insistent busybody nature of the recently retired. Profoundly hard-of-hearing after a career in musical performance, and equally disappointed with finding himself alone in his world after the death of his beloved wife, Mark stubbornly and clumsily puts himself in harm's way to draw out the truth. Constable Jeremy Roth, Mark's long-lost cousin, is the muscle of the group, patrolling the northern highways for the local police detachment and investigating on the ground. Mark's beloved daughter, Stephanie, building her name as a criminologist at the university in Thunder Bay, gets to the details of the matter using her academic credentials and her innate puzzle-solving instincts. Mark ignores all official advice and his own precarious health as he digs deep into the secrets of his new town. But the town is looking back at him--observing, plotting--and it may prove more than a match for Mark's loved ones, and deadly to him.

John Degen is a poet and novelist with three published books. His debut novel, The Uninvited Guest, was shortlisted for the 2006 Amazon.ca First Novel Award, and given feature reviews in the Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire. His essays and opinions have been published widely throughout Canada, including in The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The Hill Times, Canadian Notes and Queries, The BC Review, THIS Magazine, Quill & Quire, and the Literary Review of Canada. He has served on many boards and advisories in the literary and arts sector including terms as Chair of the Book & Periodical Council, THIS Magazine, and the Canadian Creators' Coalition. He holds a Master's degree in Literature from the University of Toronto. Degen has worked on behalf of other authors for the past thirty years. He is Chief Executive Officer of The Writers' Union of Canada (TWUC), and Chair of the International Authors Forum (IAF) in the UK. He lives and works, happily, in Thessalon, Ontario, with occasional reluctant visits to Toronto and Ottawa.