Patrick Bird

Created by Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson

Young private detective PATRICK BIRD wanders the rapidly changing streets of Toronto  in the mid-sixties, back when it was only Canada’s second largest city  and sneeringly referred to as “Toronto the Good” (at least in sleazy, breezy Montréal). But the times they are a-changin’, and  Toronto is evolving, growing, and slowly chucking it’s uptight puritanical image.

And Patrick fits right in. Cynical,  impudent and impatient, he’s a mouthy police academy burnout, reduced to working the badger game, using his camera to catch cheating husbands in rented rooms all over the city. He works for a small, three-person agency, owned by Sid and his wife Rachel, and as such is their “top man.”

Right.

In his promising debut novel, The Road to Heaven (2024), Patrick’s doing okay, but chomping at the bit for a real case. And then he gets one, a wandering daughter job.  Sixteen-year-old Abbie Linklater hasn’t been home for two days, and her family (Mom, Dad, her twin brother Nelson) is worried. Is it an abortion? Has she run off to hang out with the freaks? Shacked up with some boy?

And then the first body shows up, and family secrets (both the Linklater’s and Patrick’s) start spilling out.

It’s fast-paced and the local scene is nailed down, grim and shadowy, and Patrick’s first person voice-over is all taut and cynical and even occasionally mean-spirited, though Booklist‘s comparisons to Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy may be a bit premature. At least for now.

It’s the author’s first novel, but there’s definitely something there. Stay tuned.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Toronto writer Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson won the Crime Writer of Canada‘s  Best Crime Novella Award and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine‘s  Black Orchid Novella Award. The Road to Heaven was his first novel, and it garnered an Edgar nom. not too shabby.

UNDER OATH

• “A taut noir that introduces Patrick Bird, a rookie PI who is as self-destructive as he is effective. This edge-of-the-chair page-turner is full of suspense, evocative settings, and unforgettable characters trapped in a web full of secrets and lies.”
  — Liv Spector
• “P.I. Patrick Bird is a character I hope to encounter again, and again.”
  —  Linda Landrigan (editor, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine)
• “PI Patrick Bird’s dogged pursuit of a missing persons case is captured with a wry awareness of a gaping postwar generational divide and a pitiless eye for intimate affairs.”
  ― Andrew Steinmetz

NOVELS

• The Road to Heaven (2024) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!
• Opposite Sully’s Gym (2026)

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

• Ontari-ari-ari-o Eyes
  Eyes from Canada’s Second Largest Province

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.