One of the richest men in Canada is found dead in his Toronto mansion. The police are baffled. The victim's family call on Rachel Tile, head of the school of criminology at a Toronto university, to conduct an investigation. As the dead man's ex-wife, Rachel knows enough about his unethical business practices and callous cruelty to shed no tears over his murder, but reluctantly takes on the role. Struggling with pressure from the university to raise millions of dollars for her school, with her own depression and alcoholism, and with her husband's gambling addiction, Rachel is pushed to her emotional and intellectual limits as she searches for the killer. And as more bodies are found, Rachel realizes she and her family may now be in the killer's crosshairs.
ADVANCE REVIEWS OF DEADLY DONATION
"Lorne Tepperman draws on years of experience studying crime, gambling, and family relations in crafting this neo-noir thriller. Conflicting and overlapping motives, an undertow of corruption and deceit, and clues hidden in plain sight will challenge readers until the final denouement." ---Rosemary Gartner, co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Gender, Sex, and Crime
"This fast-paced murder mystery has everything: gambling, addiction, marital betrayal, a nasty (and wealthy) victim and a myriad suspects, including the protagonist. Add in Norse mythology and a denouement that is both surprising and inevitable, and you have a book impossible to put down." ---Michael Adams, author of Sex in the Snow and Fire and Ice
"A powerful and mesmerizing gamble of a book, seen with the wise eye of a master observer!" ---Murray Pomerance, author of A King of Infinite Space
"An intriguing first novel, featuring an out-of-the-ordinary protagonist who thinks too much---and not enough." ---Rick Blechta, award-winning author of the Pratt & Ellis Mysteries
"A well-paced thriller with intriguing labyrinthian complexity. The turns and twists keep you reading page after page after page." -Neil Guppy, author of The Schooled Society
"Lorne Tepperman has hit a home run with this first book in his new crime series." ---Bruce McGregor, author of GPS Wealth and GPS Millionaire
"A cracking good read! Very fun reading---with a fine eye for the dark side of big money at the top." ---Lars Osberg, author of The Age of Increasing Inequality: The Astonishing Rise of Canada's 1%
"There is much to savor in this densely plotted saga." ---Julian Tanner, author of Teenage Troubles
Born in Toronto, Lorne Tepperman at first studied music but then "got seduced by sociology." He earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Toronto before going on to Harvard, from which he graduated with his doctorate. He then returned to Canada, and for over fifty years, taught sociology to undergraduates at the University of Toronto. Over that time, he authored, co-authored, and edited nearly a hundred books, including best-selling textbooks on families, social inequality, crime and deviance, social problems, and introductory sociology, as well as monographs on the future of families and gambling addiction. The latter were translated into Vietnamese and Russian respectively. His latest nonfiction book, Why You Buy, which looks at shopping and consumerism, is being published at the same time as his first novel, Deadly Donation.
