Dale Hunter

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Created by Delvin R. Chatterson

Trouble is his business?

Not exactly. It’s just that successful young Montreal entrepreneur DALE HUNTER just can’t seem to stay out of trouble, in this engaging non-P.I. series of thrillers by Del Chatterson. Chatterson, it should be noted, writes about business like Dick Francis wrote about horses.

When we meet Dale in the series debut, No Easy Money (2018), it’s the 1980s, and the McGill grad has recently struck it big with his start-up, 3D Computer Products. He’s happily married to Susan (with children, Sean and Kiera), the money is rolling in and the good times are being had.

Until the bad guys, including some less than scrupulous business competitors and, yes, organized crime, smell blood. The rivals are bad enough, but the mob’s shaking him down for protection money. And that’s how it starts.

Dale’s no hard-boiled private eye, and the only real client of this unlikely hero is Dale himself. And yet, in every book, he finds himself in a jackpot of one kind or another: more threats from various gangs, trouble with the local Mafia, a new business partner who gets him tangled up with the Triads, smugglers, money launderers, civic corruption, loan sharks, kidnappers, dirty politicians and some very hostile takeover attempts.

That Dale manages to survive, even with the help of Frank the Fixer, a hardened young Somalian immigrant who works both sides of the law, (for a price), it’s astounding he’s survived this long.

In fact, the author realized this, and the fifth book in the series, Bad Boys In Boston (2024),  jumps forward thirty years from the 1980s to 2019, and focusses on Frank, flashing back to his troubled past in Somalia.

The most recent book, Whatever It Takes (2025), remains in the present, and finds Dale semi-retired and caught off-guard by charges against an old friend, business acquaintance and former professor, who’s being accused of assorted shenanigans,  up to and possibly including murder.

So… not really a P.I. series, even if Dale (with Frank’s help) often acts like one. And yet, and yet… try and put one of these suckers down.

A businessman himself, Chatterson knows the ins and outs of the game, nor does he shy away from or trivialize the Montreal setting, its culture and history — there’s a boatload of mentions of local bars, cafés, restaurants and more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Canadian writer, entrepreneur, business advisor and bon vivant Del Chatterson may have started out in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, but has  lived and worked  in Montreal, Quebec for forty years. After attending the University of British Columbia and receiving his MBA from McGill, he worked as a business executive, international management consultant, entrepreneur and business owner, and business advisor and writer, having penned several non-fiction books about business, including Don’t Do It the Hard Way and The Complete Do-It-Yourself Guide to Business Plan. Del has helped entrepreneurs around the world, including volunteer consulting and financial support in developing economies and in Aboriginal communities, and in 2000 ran for Member of Parliament in the Canadian Federal election. (“I came second, not last,” he points out.) In 2025, he was elected Board Chair (“and  Chief Cheerleader,” he adds) for  the Crime Writers of Canada.

NOVELS

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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