The Road to Heaven

The Road to Heaven by Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson (2024) 328pp

Set in 1960s Toronto, this mystery from Canada follows the standard Chandleresque formula. A burned-out private eye, femme fatales, a missing person. and of course, murder. Aspiring PI Patrick Bird works for a crusty old-school detective agency and is glad to be assigned a missing person case, a chance to move on from divorce work, photographing illicit trysts. Trent Linklater, Bird’s high-end client, is concerned that his teenage daughter Abbie has gone missing. Bird uses practically every gumshoe trick in the book looking for the daughter. Red herrings abound and seediness is the rule as Bird takes the reader across the city uprooting rocks and uncovering sleaze. He is run over, finds a body, is dragged to the police station and interrogated, and eventually faces down the murderer. And that is the abbreviated version. Stefanovich-Thomson was just short-listed for an Edgar and has certainly earned it. Readers will be glad that there is no tariff on maple noir – yet.