Aloha Candy Hearts

New Edition of Russell Quant's Sixth Case From the calm Pacific to the storm-tossed prairie, a teasing puzzle turns into a frightening game of cat and mouse for gay PI Russell Quant. Russell can't be sure whether a dead man's surprising last gift will take him on a treasure hunt or a treacherous game of life or death. With a series of clues spanning decades — from a shocking modern-day murder to Saskatoon's dark, hidden past — he revisits the harsh realities of early homesteading, investigates the blackmail of one of the literary world's most esteemed writers, and digs for clues at the site of a never-forgotten scourge. As past reveals future, the hunter becomes the hunted. Racing to keep up with his latest case, Russell must balance his professional life with the demands of a wedding, a memorial, and at least one home-cooked meal at Mom's. With the Hawaiian sand barely shook free from his hair, Russell is confronted, professionally and personally, with the harsh consequences of indecision. Saying aloha is not always easy. Welcome to the world of Russell Quant... .

A mother's pain. A million dollars. A missing son. Desperate to right old wrongs, a new client hires Russell Quant to locate her son, Matthew, lost to her for twenty years. But can money relieve remorse? Through good old-fashioned detective work, Russell peels away the layers of a carefully concealed life, grown from the seeds of traumatic childhood violence. Tracking Matthew's life from the schoolyard drug culture of a pleasant prairie city's underbelly to the stunning vistas, vibrant townships, and tinderbox safaris of Africa, Russell finds much more than he was looking for. Ever adept at making both friends and foes, Quant runs a gauntlet of uncharted danger as worlds collide. Thrust into the unfamiliar role of bad guy, stymied by seemingly insurmountable distrust and base fear, Russell cuts a blistering swath through covert threats and overt bullets. But as he searches for his Canadian needle in an African haystack, the brutality escalates. Confronting his own role in the cause and effect of scars and anger, retribution and revenge, Russell Quant faces a difficult question: What happens when the prodigal son resists the return?

Volume 3 shifts its focus to Regina’s literary culture and to the coming generation of younger writers, but it continues to examine the best work from Saskatchewan. The impact, the relevance, the illuminations of our best writers’ work tend to move well beyond the borders of our province. This work transcends the regional sources of its inspiration. Just as Marilynne Robinson has much to say to Canadians about the disruptions and the graces of family life, Dianne Warren has much to say to Americans about the omnipresence of the past, the shadows it casts on people’s lives in the present. Many of our best books are nurtured by the history and the life of this province, but they spring into literature roughly in proportion to their applications and their immemorial responses to the human condition.

Neil Gupta went to the Middle East looking for antique carpets. He found something equally timeless: murder. When Neil is found stabbed to death in Dubai's spice souk, his distraught father wants revenge. He hires private investigator Russell Quant to catch the killer. In his greatest case to date, Quant goes undercover to match wits with a wily museum curator, shifty souk merchants, corrupt carpet experts, and the denizens of an underground club for fabulous men. From the flamboyant glitz of Dubai to the scorching sand dunes of Saudi Arabia, Quant risks his life as he wades further and further into the shadows cast by the desert sun. As Russell's spicy international adventure heats up, he learns a valuable lesson about love, life, and learning to seize the moment ... before it's gone. On the verge of making the biggest personal decision of his life, Russell discovers that endings sometimes come before beginnings.

In The Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film (2005), scholar Drewey Wayne Gunn examined the history of gay detectives beginning with the first recognized gay novel, The Heart in Exile, which appeared in 1953. In the years since the original edition's publication, hundreds of novels and short stories in this sub-genre have been produced, and Gunn has unearthed many additional representations previously unrecorded. In this new edition, Gunn provides an overview of milestones in the development of gay detectives over the last several decades. Also included in this volume is an annotated list of novels, short stories, plays, graphic novels, comic strips, films, and television series with gay detectives, gay sleuths of secondary importance, and non-sleuthing gay policemen. The most complete listing available--including the only listing of early gay pulp novels, present-day male-to-male romances, and erotic films--this new edition brings the work up to date with publications missed in the first edition, particularly cross-genre mysteries, early pulps, and some hard-to-find volumes. The Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film: A History and Annotated Bibliography lists all printed works in English (including translations) presently known to include gay detectives (such as amateur sleuths, police detectives, private investigators, and investigative reporters), from the 1929 play Rope until the present day. It includes all films in English, subtitled or dubbed, from the screen version of Rope in 1948 and the launch of the independent film Spy on the Fly in 1966 through the end of 2011. Complete with two appendices--a bibliography of sources and a list of Lambda Literary Awards--and indexes of titles, detectives, and actors, this extensively revised and updated reference will prove invaluable to mystery collectors, researchers, aficionados of the subgenre, and those devoted to GLBTQ studies.

International chef Jake Hardy has it all. Celebrity, thriving career, plenty of friends, a happy family and faithful dog. Until one day when a tragic accident tears it all apart. Struggling to recover, Hardy finds himself in a strange new world--a snow-swept prairie town that time forgot--a place where nothing makes sense. Cold is beautiful. Simple is complex. And doubts begin to surface about whether Jake's tragedy was truly an accident after all. As the sun sets in the Land of Living Skies, Hardy and his glamourous, seventy-eight-year-old transgender neighbour find themselves ensnared in multiple murders separated by decades. In Bidulka's "love letter to life on the prairies" he delivers a story of grief and loss that manages to burst with joy, tenderness and hope. Redolent of his earlier works, Going to Beautiful brings us unexpected, under-represented characters in settings that immediately feel familiar and beloved. Beautiful--a place where what you need may not be what you were looking for.

"As Quant trails a menacing blackmailer known only as Loverboy, he finds himself immersed in the midnight worlds of online dating and parking lot romance."--Page 4 of cover.

When we left him last, Saskatoon gay PI Russell Quant was a broken man. Dumped by his boyfriend, forced to drive around town in a minivan instead of his beloved sports car, only his dogs still needed him. But, things are looking up. A call for help from an old adversary gives Russell a new purpose in life, and he faces the future with a spring in his step and new highlights in his hair. Set in the beautiful Mexican beach town of Zihuatenengo, the eighth in the Quant mystery series will thrill old and new fans of Anthony Bidulka's smart, sassy detective.