For Joe Shoe, the return to his family home in north Toronto is more than just a trip down memory lane; it’s also a visit to a crime scene. No sooner has Shoe arrived in his old neighbourhood than he discovers that police are investigating a murder in the ravine near his home. And the murder victim is a man who lived in the neighbourhood 35 years earlier — and who moved away while still a suspect in a series of rapes that occurred in the very ravine in which he was ultimately murdered. The police investigation, and Shoe’s own inquiries, becomes intensely personal, as old friends, girlfriends, and even family members seem to have a connection to the murder victim, and reasons to want him dead. Compelling, deeply emotional, and at times even disturbing, The Dells is an accomplished novel by one of Canada’s rising stars of crime fiction.