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The Birds That Stay

Ann Lambert

$22.99

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English
Second Story Press
01 September 2025
Series: Russell & Leduc
As winter approaches a small village in the Laurentians, north of Montreal, a reclusive older woman is found strangled outside her home. Romeo Leduc, the enigmatic Chief Inspector for Homicide, is one day away from his first vacation in years but reluctantly answers the call on the case. Marie Russell did not know her elderly neighbour, and she does not expect to become embroiled in solving her murder. Like most people in her sleepy town, Marie values the quiet months after tourists and cottagers leave. But when a startling clue links the crime to a terrible incident that happened on Marie's suburban Montreal street in the 1970s, Marie becomes an inadvertent detective. As Marie and Romeo combine wits to find the killer, they are forced to face demons from their own pasts as they confront a case where no one and nothing is really as it seems.

'Layers of a mysterious past must be unraveled to solve a murder in the present in this intimate journey through time.'

John Farrow, author of The Storm Murders Trilogy
By:  
Imprint:   Second Story Press
Country of Publication:   Canada
Volume:   1
Dimensions:   Height: 213mm,  Width: 137mm,  Spine: 20mm
Weight:   408g
ISBN:   9781772600919
ISBN 10:   1772600911
Series:   Russell & Leduc
Pages:   344
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Ann Lambert has been writing and directing for the stage for thirty-five years. Several of her plays, including The Wall, Parallel Lines, Very Heaven, The Mary Project and Two Short Women have been performed in theatres in Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia. She has been a teacher of English literature at Dawson College for almost twenty-eight years in Montreal, Quebec, where she makes her home.

Reviews for The Birds That Stay

...a fascinating and gripping tale of suspense, and there's even a hint of romance here. -- New York Journal of Books In her debut murder mystery, Ann Lambert manages to elevate an escapist genre into a meditation on the repercussions of horrendous crimes on generations to come.-- The Canadian Jewish News Lambert will scratch your murder-mystery itch, rest assured, but she resists the common tendency to place the action in a sealed-off world where murder is normalized. The Birds That Stay is fully engaged with life.-- The Montreal Gazette Lambert's craft is honed by years of playwriting, teaching literature, and observing the human condition. She depicts believable characters whose worlds collide when history, in its insidious way, encroaches on the present, and affects future generations.-- The Senior Times Ten Thrillers That Will Keep You on the Edge of Your Seat Until Summertime (List)-- The Globe and Mail The setting is the Laurentians, north of Montreal. That leads one to inevitably think of Louise Penny's Three Pines, but let the comparison stop there. Yes, both are rural and very Quebec, but Lambert is telling a very different story in a very different way.--Margaret Cannon The Globe and Mail The Birds That Stay is populated with complex characters, not one of whom has been untouched by some form of trauma, be it divorce, addiction, abuse, abandonment, or betrayal. The skillful way in which these characters are rendered is part of what makes the book so engaging.-- Montreal Review of Books With many references to Quebec that will be familiar to those who know the province, the book may also appeal to fans of Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache series.-- Press-Republican The Russell and Leduc Mystery Series by Ann Lambert is filling a void that is becoming more and more obvious by the year. The Birds That Stay is the first in the series and it serves as a great introduction to these two unique protagonists and crime-solvers... Because each brings their own set of clues to solve the murder, I spent the majority of the book with absolutely no idea of who Newman's killer was. --Anne Logan I've Read This Quebec Writers' Federation - Concordia First Book Prize 2019 Juror comments (full text) Lambert's prose captures the spirit(s) of Quebec, the push and pull of modernity, particularly in the communities far from the cities, and the beauty that is sometimes forgotten in discussions of provincial politics... Amidst a cast of sympathetic characters who span social classes and carry with them burdens of diverse, often painful personal histories, Lambert interweaves the stories of two winning protagonists who meet via the mystery to be solved... Lambert's confidence in her characters, her intelligent plot, and digressions that both instruct and delight make The Birds that Stay an engaging and un-put-down-able read.


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