The Calling

Voted one of the Best Mystery Books of 2008 by Publisher''s Weekly

This dazzling crime-fiction debut - a dark, haunting, compassionate story of the hunt for a killer motivated by love - will be the international publishing event of the season.

This brilliant debut mystery has it all: characters so realistic they rise off the page; a devious plot that delivers both psychological depth and emotional heights; exceptionally fine, deft writing; a stunning cross-Canada manhunt; a detective like no other; and the promise of more mysteries in the series.

The first homicide that Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef, acting chief of the Port Dundas police, has had to investigate in almost three years is that of cancer patient Delia Chandler, a woman who once had an affair with Hazel's father. When a few days later, and three hundred kilometres away, the mutilated body of an MS sufferer is found, painted in Chandler's blood, Micallef realizes that someone is killing the terminally ill, and not for mercy's sake. Hobbled by a bad back and a skeptical police bureaucracy, Inspector Micallef takes it upon herself to coordinate a nationwide manhunt for the killer; a man, she soon learns, who can save a life as dramatically as he can end one - a man with God on his mind, grief in his heart, and a desperate need to kill.

This thrilling psychological tale stands alongside the best contributions to the genre by Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell), Minette Walters, and Patricia Highsmith.

The Calling is being published simultaneously in the U.S. by Harcourt and in the U.K. by Transworld.

This dazzling crime-fiction debut - a dark, haunting, compassionate story of the hunt for a killer motivated by love - will be the international publishing event of the season.

This brilliant debut mystery has it all: characters so realistic they rise off the page; a devious plot that delivers both psychological depth and emotional heights; exceptionally fine, deft writing; a stunning cross-Canada manhunt; a detective like no other; and the promise of more mysteries in the series.

The first homicide that Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef, acting chief of the Port Dundas police, has had to investigate in almost three years is that of cancer patient Delia Chandler, a woman who once had an affair with Hazel's father. When a few days later, and three hundred kilometres away, the mutilated body of an MS sufferer is found, painted in Chandler's blood, Micallef realizes that someone is killing the terminally ill, and not for mercy's sake. Hobbled by a bad back and a skeptical police bureaucracy, Inspector Micallef takes it upon herself to coordinate a nationwide manhunt for the killer; a man, she soon learns, who can save a life as dramatically as he can end one - a man with God on his mind, grief in his heart, and a desperate need to kill.

This thrilling psychological tale stands alongside the best contributions to the genre by Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell), Minette Walters, and Patricia Highsmith.

The Calling is being published simultaneously in the U.S. by Harcourt and in the U.K. by Transworld.

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Calling
Presently Delia closed her eyes. He listened to her breathing - low, long, soughing breaths. He lifted an eyelid, but she was profoundly asleep. . . .
His eye fell on a leather knife-sheath, and he took it out and held the weight of it in the palm of his hand. He wrapped his fingers around the knife handle, and the sound it made as he drew the blade from its hiding place was like a voice, like a word whispered: an utterance. It said taketh, and he did.

Inger Ash Wolfe is the pseudonym of a well-known and well-regarded North American literary writer.