Mr. Good-Evening: A Mystery

The open-and-shut case of the Fatal Flapper just won’t stay closed in this thrilling and immersive novel of 1920s Vancouver—another Raincoast Noir mystery.

Miss Dora Decker doesn’t look like the sort of young woman capable of stabbing her stockbroker employer twenty-five times with her high-heeled shoe; yet, thanks to a slow news day, she has become internationally famous as the Fatal Flapper, and the police are only too happy to make the arrest.

Meanwhile, Ed McCurdy, former muckraking journalist, has traded his typewriter for a career reading radio news as Mr. Good-Evening, Canada’s first “radio personality.” As a celebrity he draws resentment and paranoia from far and near, and he worries that the next murder victim will be himself.

Inspector Calvin Hook scours the wet, boozy streets of gritty 1920s Vancouver, piecing together a mystery that somehow connects Al Capone, Winston Churchill and Brother Osiris, the leader of a mystical cult on De Courcy Island.

“A dreadfully funny novel, and a fitting cap to his ‘Northwest Noir’ trilogy. As with his Victorian thrillers, Gray takes us down the slippery streets of 1920s Vancouver where, at the edge of the British Empire, world history plays itself out in murderous ways.”

“Gray brilliantly returns us to his wonderfully vivid, sinuously imagined Vancouver, this time six months before the Crash. Superb.”

“Detectives, flappers, mobsters, jazz, liquor, and of course murder. With Mr. Good-Evening, John MacLachlan Gray serves up a cocktail of classic noir trappings. The actor, writer, and composer depicts 1920s Vancouver, warts and all, with corruption, sexism, classism, and segregation. In this gritty setting, Gray blends history and amusing twists to create an original mystery sprinkled with a Canadian garnish … the book is a fun romp. Gray punctuates crime scenes with wit, and the characters engage in irreverent interactions.”