We make so much of serious literary fiction in this country, offering lavish prizes at the end of each year for novels that add gravitas and definition to Canada’s presence in world literature, that it’s something of a surprise to learn that we’ve also managed to accumulate a disproportionately large number of writers who are proving themselves world champions in the competitive populist genre of crime and mystery fiction.

“It’s worth noting there are as many as 20 writers of crime and mystery novels in Canada who support themselves entirely on revenue from their writing,” says Toronto-based entertainment super-agent Michael Levine. His recent decision to represent crime writers — including brothers David and Robert Rotenberg, whose work has been optioned for movies and TV in the U.S. — “is a profound change in direction for me,” he adds.

A closet fan of mystery literature and high-profile agent for many of CanLit’s giants, Levine concedes “crime is where the market’s going, and it’s growing very quickly. That’s good for Canadian crime writers.”

The crime and mystery readings at the annual International Festival of Authors at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre are by far the prestigious literary festival’s most popular and well attended component, “always sold out in advance,” Levine points out.

Publishing insiders and crime novelists themselves are at a loss to explain the sudden appeal in the last decade of Canadian crime stories, whodunits and thrillers in a market that was earlier dominated by British, American, and more recently, Scandinavian novelists.

David Rotenberg, who says he gets through his massive agenda, balancing theatrical productions, running the Professional Actor’s Lab, and writing novels, seven of them mysteries, by “sleeping less,” believes Canadians have had time to avoid mistakes other crime and mystery writers have made.

“The Brits and Scandinavians are less interested in social context than we are,” he says. “The whodunit aspect interests me less than the social and historical forces at work in a mystery story. Hamlet would be just another whodunit if you stripped it of context, and it would have nothing important to say.”

The Stieg Larsson effect, which has all but emptied the pool of formerly regionally successful crime writers in Sweden, Denmark and Norway, seems to have created a tolerance, if not an appetite, in Britain and the U.S. for more unusual procedurals, more remote locales and more enigmatic principal characters, some suggest. Others claim Canadian crime writers have simply figured out the rather arcane rules of the mystery game and have finally learned to adapt to the demands of the international crime literature marketplace.

There are lots of reasons Canadian authors seem to have emerged as a force in the mystery book world, and little consensus, but there’s no denying it’s a formidable gathering whose names are familiar in parts of the world where many CanLit icons are barely known: Linwood Barclay, Louise Penny, Giles Blunt, Peter Robinson, Andrew Pyper, Maureen Jennings, Alan Bradley, William Deverell, David Rotenberg, Robert Rotenberg, D.J. (Dorothy) McIntosh, Tim Wynne-Jones, Gail Bowen, Joy Fielding, Mike Knowles, Howard Shrier, James W. Nichol, C.B. Forrest, among others.

“It’s a long list now, and the world is paying attention because this is writing of the highest standard,” says Penny, a prolific novelist, a consistent best seller and something of a heroine among Canadian crime writers for having set her popular series — featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec — in the Eastern Townships, where she lives.

When Penny abandoned her 18-year career as a host and journalist on CBC Radio in order to write full time, she says, “It was excruciatingly difficult to find an agent or a publisher in Canada or elsewhere interested in a procedural with a Canadian setting.” Less than a decade later, with eight novels — all critical successes and best sellers — under her belt, “it’s almost a given that a well written mystery set in Canada with a strong central character, a page-turning plot and series potential” will find a home, she adds.

While Penny has resisted — until recently — offers to transfer her Gamache mysteries to TV or the big screen (the series is now in development for CBC under the auspices of Toronto’s PDM Entertainment, which gave her executive producer status and guarantees the integrity of her creation), TV and movie adaptations do add to a novelist’s cachet, and to the profile of the locales in which they’re set.

“But I wouldn’t bank too much on the value of the Canadian setting,” says Barclay, who was born in the U.S. but grew up in Canada. He’s considering embarking on a main character crime series after several stand-alone best sellers that have translated into more than 30 languages.

“It’s the writer’s sensibilities that make a book Canadian, if that’s what you’re looking for.

“Outside Canada people don’t care if a novel is Canadian or not, unless they’re looking for villains who are more polite than usual,” he chuckles.

Canadian crime writers, as well as the reputation of Canadian crime literature in general, seem to have benefited greatly from the added bonus TV and movies offer, a life beyond the printed page.

More than one writer interviewed for this story credit the startling international success in the past six years of the Victorian-era, set-in-Toronto TV series based on Toronto-based British expat Maureen Jennings’ The Murdoch Mysteries with having turned attention our way.

“The TV show built slowly, but it has been extremely important to the success of the books,” says Jennings, who has just published Beware This Boy, the second volume in her The Season of Darkness Trilogy, a series of Foyle’s War-type procedurals set in the British Midlands circa 1940.

“Sales have increased exponentially since the TV series found an audience (in the U.S., Britain and Europe).”

Jennings also co-created the hit Global-TV series The Bomb Girls, about a group of Canadian women working in a munitions factory during World War II.

Almost every writer with a successful crime series on the go, or a best-selling novel, has a TV or movie deal in the works. Barclay’s recent stand-alone thriller Trust Your Eyes has been optioned for a Hollywood movie, as well as two previous best sellers, No Time for Goodbye and Fear the Worst. So has Toronto writer Andrew Pyper’s soon-to-be published The Demonologist, under the auspices of Oscar-winning producer/director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump).

Toronto-based Brit expat Robinson’s Yorkshire policiers have been adapted for British TV as DCI Banks, which enjoys international ratings success.

Actor/theatre director/teacher David Rotenberg’s epic historical novel Shanghai and his The Junction Chronicles thrillers — The Placebo Effect and A Murder of Crows, the latter due out in March — have been optioned for U.S. movie treatments. His criminal lawyer brother Robert’s third crime novel, Stray Bullets, is in development by Canadian production company, Shaftesbury Films.

And Toronto crime novelist Giles Blunt is adapting his own hit John Cardinal mysteries, set around North Bay, Ont., where the author grew up, for a CTV series.

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“Movies and TV can be a huge factor in the promotion and sales of novels — the money’s not big, and for someone like (best-selling American thriller novelist) James Patterson, it’s small change,” says Blunt, who admits he enjoys writing scripts so much that it may become his new vocation.

“But I suspect there’s a beneficial cross-over effect, especially inside the book trade.”

Robinson, whose Inspector Banks had worked his way deep into crime lit culture before Stephen Tompkinson was cast in the TV adaptation, hasn’t noticed much of a sales boost since the show started airing.

“But I think that’s because everyone who might be interested already had the books,” he said. “It helped in other ways. I got to hang out on the set and take part in the process, which I enjoyed immensely. I was impressed that all this activity was going on because I wrote a few books. I look at the TV show as a free advert.”

The book trade is far more sanguine about the prospects of TV and movie tie-ins. Mysteries sell, they always have, but since the three-part Girl with the Dragon Tattoo juggernaut a couple of years ago, the genre has kicked up the crime books business, says Sarah MacLachlan, publisher at Toronto-based House of Anansi Press, which started its own mystery imprint, Spiderline, in Larsson’s wake.

“We see better manuscripts coming in, and all the books we’ve taken on are doing very well. We’ve been selling the rights to our direct signings all over the world, and we’re particularly interested in stories that can be optioned for movies or TV.”

Publishers of crime novels are on the lookout for good story lines “and a strong lead character with the potential to grow through a series, someone readers can engage with or commit themselves to.

“The object is to get a series up and running with a devoted readership, and writers who are committed to produce a book every 9 or 12 months,” MacLachlan added.

“They should be prepared to do all that’s necessary for outreach, via social media, the Internet and conventional promotion.”

Toronto novelist, screenwriter and former Star movie critic Ron Base knows exactly what MacLachlan is talking about. He has been working on those principles for a couple of years now, writing and marketing his series of Florida-based Sanibel Sunset Detective crime novels. What sets Base apart is that he’s doing it all himself, including the publishing part.

Like so many musicians and songwriters who’ve learned in the past decade to use inexpensive digital tools and the Internet to record, sell and promote their work, Base decided to learn the ins and outs of self-publishing after his brother, an accountant who lives on Sanibel Island off Florida’s coast, suggested he write a series of locally set crime yarns to sell to island visitors during the summer — about 500,000 captive vacationers looking for the perfect beach read.

Three books into the set — the latest, Another Sanibel Sunset Detective, will be launched Jan. 28 at the P.J. O'Brien Irish Pub downtown — Base is almost living off his earnings as a writer-publisher and says he’s “blissfully unencumbered by middle men.”

He has become a local celebrity around Sanibel, and enjoys the company of his fans. He’s also something of an expert on what makes a good crime novel, and how to sell his wares via his web site, Facebook, networking and self-booked signings at pubs and bookstores in Toronto and Florida. He’s assisted by a small coterie of professional editor friends and eager readers willing to promote his work.

“Give people a reason to turn the next page and a lead character they can identify with, someone who’s flawed, like we all are, but who’s essentially a good person and likeable,” Base says, echoing almost to a word what a dozen other writers interviewed for this story had to say about the secrets of crafting a good modern mystery novel.

Adds Robert Rotenberg, who confesses his career as a criminal lawyer informs all the stories he writes: “Keep the chapters short and a good supply of unexpected plot twists. Then tie all the pieces together at the last moment.

“Unlike real life, a good crime novel has to have resolution — not necessarily happy, but one that answers all the questions you’ve thrown out there, and re-establishes some sense of moral order.”