Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson is a writer living in Toronto. He writes a wide variety of crime and crime-adjacent fiction, including novels, novellas, stories, and flash fiction. He is the past winner of the Black Orchid Novella Award (2021) and the Crime Writers of Canada Best Novella Award (2023) for “The Man Who Went Down Under.” He placed third in the Toronto Star’s Short Story Contest (2022) for “The Unfinished Book.” 

In June 2024 his first novel The Road to Heaven was published by Dundurn Press. The Road to Heaven is a noir mystery introducing artless young detective Patrick Bird, set in Toronto’s Parkdale and High Park during the tumultuous ’60s. 

Alexis has sold the sequel to The Road to Heaven to Dundurn Press with a release date of March 2026.

Represented by Julia Kim at The Rights Factory.

The Road to Heaven

A gripping noir mystery introducing artless young detective Patrick Bird, set in Toronto’s Parkdale during the tumultuous ’60s.

“I didn’t kill her. I had the thought, the idea. What’s the saying? The road to heaven is paved with bad intentions?”

Police academy burnout turned private eye Patrick Bird works divorce cases, using his camera to catch the unfaithful and the lonely looking for love in rented rooms. But his easy routine is shattered by a new case involving a missing girl.

Sixteen-year-old Abbie Linklater hasn’t been home for three days. Her mother believes Abbie’s getting an abortion. Her twin brother thinks she’s studying at the library. Her best friend couldn’t care less. Her father has no idea; he just wants her home without involving the police.

Before the sun sets on the first day of his investigation, as Bird roams the streets of Toronto looking for the runaway, he’s caught a drifter prowling in the Linklater’s backyard, stumbled into a creepy church with a belligerent minister, sparred with the client, been hit by a car, and discovered some loose ends in a bank robbery gone wrong a decade earlier.

And that was before he found the body.

Learn More

Short Fiction

  • How cold the air was, and how I fought to stay warm in those first minutes. I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven the world for that. And that’s a part of my success.
    Read More

  • When his father took him camping for the first time, the boy was excited about what animals he might see in the wild. Imagine his excitement when he saw a moose -- which even his father, in all his years of experience -- had never seen.
    Read More

  • Marcy thought the house her ex-husband grew up in looked haunted. He never thought of it that way, but when he returns to tidy up after his father’s death he finds himself thinking maybe she was right after all.
    Read More

  • Not all private detectives live at home with their mother, but it’s lucky for Dalton Duckworth, head of the Duckworth Detective Agency, that he does because she’s the brains of the organization. When they’re not trading insults or eating breakfast the two team up to search for the Sun of Sumatra, the massive diamond in Joy Cleaver’s missing aigrette.
    Read More

  • Amy knows she shouldn’t open the door to the stranger on her stoop, but she does anyway. Peter is writing a book about Toronto’s famous bank robbers, The Boyd Gang, and she lives in the house that they hid out at after escaping the Don Jail. A key piece of Peter’s research lies right under her living room floor.
    Read More

Extra:
Appointment at Gunn Lake

In the chaotic days before the pandemic even had a name, Ralph and his wife Farrah leave the panic of Vancouver for their cabin at Gunn Lake. Ralph has a premonition that death is stalking him and he will catch the virus—that’s why he’s so happy to escape to the peace of their lake home.
Read More

What I’m Reading

What's Become of Waring by Anthony Powell "By the way, here is that American novel I told you about. Let me know what you think of it." "Anything special?" "I don't feel happy about the chapter where Irving and Wayne listen
The Village of Eight Graves by Seishi Yokomizo "Do you really imagine that Dr. Kuno could be capable of committing all these mysterious murders?" "To be honest, no," she said with a sigh. "He's always been fond of detective
The Don -- The Story of Toronto's Infamous Jail by Lorna Poplak Great history of Toronto's Don Jail with plenty of thrilling stories and unforgettable characters. "The Public was absolutely entranced: murder, a charming rogue, a beautiful wo
Purity by Jonathan Franzen "A drawback of email was that you could only delete it once: couldn't crumple it up, fling it to the floor, stomp on it, rip it to shreds, and burn it." or... "Maybe Flor can give me a hundred and thirty t
The Door by Magda Szabo This one was a rocker! File somewhere between Henry Farrell's Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Bruce Chatwin's UTZ, and Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. "I said earlier that I was still rather young, and I hadn't t
No Room at the Morgue by Jean-Patrick Manchette (you get your money's worth on the first page and the rest is free...) "Monday was particularly depressing. My alarm went off at nine and I sat up in bed. Well, if you can call it a bed. Besides,
Those Drinking Days: Myself and Other Writers by Donald Newlove "Some few knew the rebirth of getting unpickled. But it takes a miracle to unpickle a genius and pluck him from this barrel of manias. All nature is against it, and so is the victi
Stoner by John Williams Then he smiled fondly, as if at a memory; it occurred to him that he was nearly sixty years old and that he ought to be beyond the force of such passion, of such love. But he was not beyond it, he knew, and would never be. B
The Big Gold Dream by Chester Himes He went into the bedroom, stretched out on the floor with his head on the pile of Alberta's lingerie and went to sleep. Twenty minutes later he was snoring loud and steadily. When he exhaled, his snores sounded l
Shackleton by Roland Huntford "You don't know who said that," he affirmed. "No, I don't know who said that." "Well, Shackleton said it." "That explorer-man?" I asked. "He must be a man of parts. I never k
I'll be reading from The Road to Heaven and answering questions at @desmondpryan 's Brews and Clues at 6.30 on Thursday, September 12th at Stout Irish Pub (221 Carlton Street). If you're in the mood for some noir at the bar, it'd be great to see you.
King Rat by James Clavell They were the best fried eggs Peter Marlowe had ever seen, so he paid the King the greatest compliment in the English world. "Not bad," he said flatly. "Not too bad, I suppose." #kingrat #jamesclavell #
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan Protestant propaganda at its best: "He that sleeps is a loser." and "A remembrance of former chastisements is an help against present temptations." and so much more... #thepilgrimsprog
Normal People by Sally Rooney Connell's initial assessment of the reading was not disproven. It was culture as class performance, literature fetishized for its ability to take educated people on false emotional journeys, so that they might afterward
See review of The Road to Heaven in the Toronto Star by Steven W. Beattie "The debut novel from Toronto author Stefanovich-Thomson is a stylish throwback to hard-boiled crime thrillers of the classic era, with an engaging and entertaining prota
A Nice Place to Die by J. Woollcott Fans of Henning Mankell and Ian Rankin should drop what they are doing to pick up a copy of J. Woollcott's A Nice Place to Die. Set in Northern Ireland, and introducing Detective Sergeant Ryan McBride this police
A Diversity of Creatures by Rudyard Kipling "When he took breath I realized how only Satan can rebuke sin. The good don't know enough." #rudyardkipling #adiversityofcreatures #whatimreading #penguinclassics #unfashionable
Next of Twin by Jass Aujla I think what I liked best about Next of Twin was how every character was fully developed with their own motivations and devious plans. It reminded me of Jim Thompson's The Grifters in the way everyone is in on some sort of
The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene "In a dream you cannot escape: the feet are leaden-weighted: you cannot stir from before the ominous door which almost imperceptibly moves. It is the same in life; sometimes it is more difficult to make a s
Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout "I told you last night that Mr. Osgood was not killed by the bull. My infernal curiousity led me to discover that much, and the weapon that was used, but I refuse to let the minor details of the problem to take p