Jim McDonald has been judged a finalist for the prestigious Crime Writers of Canada Best Crime First Novel, sponsored by Melodie Campbell with a $1000 prize for his noir psychological thriller Altered Boy, available on Amazon Kindle. The winner will be announced on May 30, 2025.

Also on Kindle: Smash Palace, a collection of 32 short stories. Coming in 2026, his historical novel Counterculture Revolution, set in 1970, is about the anti-war activist group The Weathermen.

Altered Boy is the featured novel for Humanist Canada’s Book Club online meeting on June 3, 2025. Jim will be in attendance to answer questions.

In addition, Jim’s short story “Ticket Out” is in the anthology Midnight Schemers and Daydream Believers: 22 Stories of Mystery and Suspense, edited by Judy Penz Sheluk, to be released June 18, 2025.

Learn more about Crime Writers of Canada at: crimewriterscanada.com
Find past video interviews at: youtube.com/@crimewritersofcanada1279

Cathy Ace’s novel, The Corpse with the Pearly Smile, (published by Four Tails Publishing Ltd.) has been nominated for The Whodunit Award for Best Traditional Mystery sponsored by Jane Doe with a $500 prize.

Ace’s Cait Morgan Mysteries feature a globetrotting Welsh Canadian criminal psychologist who solves traditional whodunits alongside her retired-cop husband, Bud Anderson (Eve Myles will portray Cait in the TV production by Free@LastTV). Her WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries feature four softly-poached female PIs solving cosy cases from a Welsh stately home. She's a past Chair of Crime Writers of Canada, and is a Bony Blithe, IPPY, IBA and Editor’s Choice CrimeFictionLover Award winner. This is her third nomination for Crime Writers of Canada Awards. She migrated from Wales aged 40, and now lives in Canada.

Learn more about Crime Writers of Canada at: crimewriterscanada.com
Find past video interviews at: youtube.com/@crimewritersofcanada1279

Melissa Yi is nominated for Best Crime Short Story and Best Juvenile / YA Crime Book sponsored by Superior Shores Press.

Melissa could slice your throat and sew it back up again. Legally. Because she’s an emergency doctor. In her spare minutes, Melissa writes the Hope Sze medical crime series, which Ellery Queen praised for its “nitty-gritty” description and Publishers Weekly for its “darker themes … entertaining and insightful.” The Globe and Mail praises her as a “standout,” having written a best Canadian suspense novel.

Melissa’s mystery stories were finalists for the Award of Excellence (best crime story in Canada) and the Derringer Award (best crime story in the English language) and longlisted for the Staunch Prize (best feminist thriller worldwide).

Learn more about Crime Writers of Canada at: crimewriterscanada.com
Find past video interviews at: youtube.com/@crimewritersofcanada1279