Old City Hall — Robert Rotenberg

Old City Hall opens with a bang, or perhaps a stab: Canada's leading radio show host, Kevin Brace, comes to the door of his luxury condominium with his hands covered in blood and tells the newspaper delivery man: "I killed her." The "her" in question is his young wife, whose body lies in the bathtub of their suite, a knife wound through the sternum.

So, if he killed her, where's the mystery? That's the question asked by the detectives plowing through what should be an openand- shut case. Even Kevin's defense attorney doesn't know what really happened, because he refuses to talk to her or to anyone else after muttering those incriminating words. With the discovery that the victim was actually a self-destructive alcoholic, and the appearance of strange fingerprints in the Brace apartment, the mystery gets more complex just as it should be getting simpler.

Robert Rotenberg claims and celebrates the city of Toronto as a character as exciting and vital as the Dickensian ensemble populating the story. Douglas Preston rejoices that Rotenberg's "Toronto settings make this most multicultural city in North America come alive." Elmore Leonard has Florida; John Lescroart, San Francisco; Robert Parker, Boston; Scott Turow, Chicago; George Pelecanos, D.C. And now, in Old City Hall, Rotenberg creates in modern-day Toronto a canvas as diverse and surprising as the city itself.