Cuisinier, écrivain et associé…chez Fasken! / Cook, writer, and Partner at Fasken August 31st, 2016
Dominique Tardif interviews me for Le Droit, en français:
This week, Me Dominique Tardif of ZSA speaks with Peter Kirby, a super cook, a successful novelist and, incidentally, a partner at Fasken Martineau!
…and the interview is here.
Peter at the Authors’ Evening at the Irish Embassy Pub & Grill, December 2015
Whenever I’m feeling unloved, I turn to this photo from December 2015. It’s like getting a hug.
I was at the Irish Embassy Pub for an evening featuring Irish Montreal writers, sharing the stage with Denis Sampson (A Migrant Heart) and Alan Hustak (Faith Under Fire). Someone called for a group photo, and Margaret Healy stepped forward to join us. Mayor Denis Coderre recently introduced her as the Irish Queen of Montreal, and he’s right.
Margaret is a legend in Montreal’s Irish community, former President of the United Irish Societies, the first woman to serve as Grand Marshall of the St Patrick’s Day Parade, and her awards and medals for community involvement are too numerous to mention. She’s also a treat to be around. And guess what? She had read all my books and said she was a fan… Take a look at the picture, you know who she loves here, eh?
I smile every time I look at this photo. Thanks, Margaret!
Here’s Byron Toben’s excellent article in WestmountMag.ca about the event, whence the photo.
Peter Kirby, Ausma Zehanat Khan win Arthur Ellis Awards for crime writing May 27, 2016
[this from www.cbc.ca] Peter Kirby and Ausma Zehanat Khan are among the winners of the 2016 Arthur Ellis Awards for crime writing in Canada. Peter Kirby took home the Best Novel Award for Open Season, the third book in his Montreal-set Luc Vanier series… and the rest of the article is here.
Jack Batten in the Toronto Star: “His novels…hit all the right notes.”
16 November 2015
Peter Kirby seems exactly the author with the right background to write hardnosed police procedurals about such issues as trafficking in Eastern European prostitutes in Montreal. The product of a tough South London childhood, Kirby is now a lawyer in the Montreal offices of Fasken Martineau specializing in trade and regulatory issues. His novels featuring Montreal Det. Insp. Luc Vanier — Open Season is the third — hit all the right notes.
They are exact, precise and entirely convincing.
on YouTube: a teaser for Open Season from videographer Owen Kirby
11 November 2015
Open Season is the third crime fiction novel in the Luc Vanier series written by author Peter Kirby. In this book Luc Vanier is investigating the kidnapping of a Guatemalan journalist in Montréal.
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Joan Barfoot in ifpress.com: Crime novel stirs haunting themes
28 October 2015
In his new book Open Season, Montreal lawyer and author Peter Kirby expertly twists together a complex tale involving Canadian mining firms, Guatemala, sexual slavery and political corruption… in Open Season, globalization means that vicious Canadian mining enterprises in Guatemala, barbarous human trafficking of women from Eastern Europe, and black-hearted politicians in Ottawa, can converge in an orgy of kidnapping, torture and murder in one place: the city of Montreal.
…Like so many fictional cops, he’s willing to veer from the law in the direction of justice, but given the realistic gravity of the crimes and corruptions he’s dealing with, that’s troublingly untroubling.
All of which means Open Season is a swift and satisfyingly complex novel with themes and events that linger and haunt, close enough to fact to ring brutally true.
Read the full review here at ifpress.com.
Case Files: Luc Vanier
28 October 2015
In Canadian Crime Lit Circles, readers are introduced to two separate, yet distinctly important groups of sleuths: the amateurs, who stumble upon crimes taking place around them, and the professionals, who tackle dirtbags for dollars. These are their stories.
First up is Detective Luc Vanier of Montreal. Written by Peter Kirby, an international lawyer, we’ve followed Vanier through three cases so far: The Dead of Winter, Vigilante Season, and, new this fall, Open Season, all published by Linda Leith Publishing…
Visit AllLitUp to read more… of their Case Files.
CTV Montréal: Mutsumi Takahashi on Midday News
6 October 2015
Author Peter Kirby on his third Inspector Luc Vanier novel, interviewed by Mutsumi Takahashi on CTV Montréal Midday News. Peter discusses economic migrants and human trafficking in the context of his latest Luc Vanier novel, “Open Season”.
Watch the interview here at the CTV medialink.
Kerry Clare on Thrillers: Pick Up the Unputdownable
21 September 2015
About the book: A Guatemalan journalist is kidnapped, and the only message from her kidnappers is the murder of her lawyer. In a race against time, Luc Vanier sets about reconstructing her life, through the sordid world of human trafficking, the secretive underbelly of a multinational mining corporation, and the hiding places of desperate refugees. When Vanier is brutally warned off the investigation, he throws away the rule book and goes after the villains with a vengeance.
Why we’re taking notice: This is Kirby’s third Luc Vanier novel; all three have been critical acclaimed. And how could we not be taking notice of a book about desperate refugees considering recent news headlines?.
Read the full review here at the….
‘Murder On His Mind’ in McGill News
17 September 2015
“A growing number of crime fiction enthusiasts recognize Peter Kirby, BCL’83, LLB’85, as an author who is clearly on the rise. His first book, 2012′s “The Dead of Winter”, was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Book and introduced the world to Kirby’s chief protagonist, Franco-Ontarian detective Luc Vanier, who the Toronto Star described as “a character likely to join the ranks of Canada’s enduring sleuth figures.” His newest novel, “Open Season”, recently hit bookstores…”
Read Juliet Waters’ web exclusive at McGill News.
Kirby discusses “Open Season” on CBC’s All in a Weekend
6 September 2015
Human trafficking and refugee claims are just two of the issues that author Peter Kirby tackles in his latest crime novel. He didn’t have to look for for inspiration. Kirby talks about basing his fiction in reality.
Peter Kirby talks with Sonali Karnick about his new novel, “Open Season”. You can listen to the interview here.
Jim Napier reviews “Open Season” in mRb:Montreal Review of Books
Summer 2015
“In the brief space of three years Montreal lawyer Peter Kirby has found time to turn out yet another in his fine series of novels featuring Montreal Detective Inspector Luc Vanier, and each new addition is more assured, and more compelling, than the last.
What sets Kirby’s work apart from many other crime novels is that mere plot is never enough; character is key.”
Read the rest of Napier’s review here.
Quill & Quire Named Vigilante Season a Top Five Crime Book for 2013
19 December 2013
“Montreal’s Paragraphe Books named Peter Kirby’s Vigilante Season its top pick for 2013 Canadian crime and mystery fiction.” Read more about Vigilante Season and check out the other four books on the Quill & Quire website
Jim Napier reviews Vigilante Season in the Montreal Review of Books
3 December 2013
“His writing has become even more assured, and his ability to capture the atmosphere of various districts of Montreal in all their glory or squalor, coupled with a believable storyline drawn from the headlines, lends his books an immediacy that will keep the reader enthralled…Vigilante Season is a fine tale that can hold its own with the best of what’s out there, and I look forward to the next installment in this engaging series.”
Read Napier’s entire review here.
Review by Anne Forrest in Nuacht
November 2013
“This novel is one for our times…I suggest you pour a glass of Jameson, as would Luc Vanier, then sit back and enjoy a good read.”
Read the rest of Anne Forrest’s review here. (PDF, pg. 13)
Sarah Lolley interviews Peter Kirby about writing, reading and Montreal
28 October 2013
About Kirby’s favourite place to write: “The National Archives reading room in La Grande Bibliothèque. It’s a an oasis of tranquility in the heart of Montréal, and there are no interruptions from gadgets. You shut off your phone, sit down with a pen and paper and just write, or just stare off into space thinking. I got some great work done there last winter.”
Read the full interview in Urban Expressions
Interview on All in A Weekend, CBC Montreal
26 October 2013
Listen to Sonali Karnick interview Peter Kirby about “Vigilante Season,” about what could happen when a neighbourhood cleans up and the real-life inspirations for the novel.
Paul Larson of Borderless North / Mountain Lake PBS in an Interview with Peter Kirby on his book “The Dead of Winter”
Published on Apr 11, 2013
Author Peter Kirby speaks about his book “The Dead of Winter” and the Blue Metropolis Montreal Literary Festival, with producer Paul Larson of Mountain Lake PBS. Listen on YouTube
Mountain Lake PBS – “The Dead of Winter”
Review by Margaret Cannon in The Globe and Mail
21 December 2012
“Kirby knows how to plot, build character and maintain suspense. His Vanier is realistic enough to be credible and interesting enough for readers to hope for a return visit. This is an auspicious debut from a writer to watch.”
Review by Publisher’s Weekly
2 December 2012
“The novel offers more than a simple tale of the worthy few against the corrupt many…[it] delivers more nuance than is typical for its genre, a promising follow-up to 2012’s lauded The Dead of Winter.”
Review by Antoine Maloney in Nuacht
November 2012
“Irishman Kirby joins Brady and Peter Robinson in the ranks of my favourite English and Irish ex-pat crime novelists living in Canada.”
“Vanier is a cop who cares, about the living and equally about the dead. He is driven to act on their behalf, very like Harry Bosch, and Kirby, like other great detective novelists, creates a fully drawn character that we care about, that we want to know more about.”
Read the full review at page 13 (PDF format)
Review by Kate Lunau in Maclean’s magazine
23 November 2012
“In The Dead of Winter, Montreal is colourful and gritty. Thugs and lowlifes rub shoulders with the elite, while the city is pummelled by an endless succession of vicious snowstorms.”
Read the full review of The Dead of Winter
Review by Sarah Wineman in the National Post
9 November 2012
“Vanier reveals himself as a worthy series detective.”
Review by Linda Wongkee in Suite 10, Great Canadian Reads
5 November 2012
“Readers who love a good crime novel will enjoy this book, but people who live in or near Montreal (or even love the city) will thoroughly enjoy reading about familiar neighbourhoods, streets and outlying communities.”
Read more at: The Dead of the Winter by Peter Kirby | Suite101
Review by Gregory McCormick in Azure Scratchings, the blog of the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival
24 October 2012
“A fascinating novel, a chronicle of a series of crimes which rock the church and business establishments in the middle of a bleak, dark, and cold Montreal winter … one of the best crime books I’ve read this year.”
Bill Brownstein profiles Peter Kirby in The Gazette
17 October 2012
“Part of the thrill of being able to write fiction is that you would get fed up writing pleadings for court with the judge looking at you and saying this looks to be very creative — but, by that, the judge is really saying that it’s a crock,”
Read more from Taking the law into his own hands at the Gazette’s website.
Mutsumi Takahashi Interviews Peter Kirby on CTV
“This is not a good thing for your mental health, and I thought, well, misery loves company, and I started to write, and this character Luc Vanier came into being, and I sent him out into the night on Christmas Eve.”
Watch the interview with author Peter Kirby
Read more on CTV’s website
Jim Napier Interviews Peter Kirby for the Montreal Review of Books
Fall 2012
“I was in a grim mood and wanted a grim subject. The real answer is that there’s a lot out there to be grim about and I wanted to engage readers with more than a straightforward whodunit. Homelessness, poverty, mental illness, and the abuse of authority are all things we witness too often.”
Read more at Peter Kirby interview at Montreal Review of Books
Review in The West End Times by Stuart Nulman
28 September 2012
“An impressive book by one of the promising new voices in the murder mystery genre…”
Read more at The West End Times
Peter Kirby on CBC Sunday Edition
19 August 2012
Gilles Blunt and Peter Kirby discussed memories of winter and how we use winter in our writing.
Link to audio on Sunday Edition website