The Road to Heaven
EXCERPT
The hallway stretched out before me, the bright lights held in sconces, the closed doors on either side, the carpet’s orange, black, and blue quadrilaterals overlapping in a hophead’s nightmare. Around a corner and still more carpet reaching into the distance, still more doors on the right and left, still the sharp lights burning on the walls. An ice machine clunked and gurgled in an alcove to the left. My watch read 12:04 a.m. I was late; but how could I have known the hallway was this long? The numbers on the doors were counting up with each step. Here it was, room 724. My fist made two sharp raps on the panel. I reached for the knob, turned it, and pushed.
There was darkness, and movement in the darkness, rustling, the sharp intake of breath, and the smell of sweat and skin. The opening door threw an oblong of yellow on the floor that widened as it swung inward. I felt for the light switch with my left hand and raised the camera with the right. The flashbulb popped just before the light came on and the scene appeared frozen. The pale back lifting off the bed, a second body underneath, the limbs once intertwined, now disentangling, a flay of dark hair spread out on the pillow, her face obscured beneath his torso. His neck swivelled at the noise of my entrance, and his bulging eyes, caught in the freeze-frame of the flash, were wide, staring, surprised. In that frozen moment, it was possible to see the change in his expression as lust leaked out, and anger and fear filled the vacuum. The bulb popped again, and he blinked as he turned and rose off the bed, the sheets falling from him, his salt-and-pepper hair glinting in the light, her hands holding on to his shoulders as she was pulled up by his movement. He emerged from the bed, the roar of fury on his face, the sagging flesh of his chest under a growth of grey moss. The woman was naked too, younger — much younger — her black hair falling onto her shoulders as she sat up. He pulled free from her grasp before the third flash flared. With his feet on the floor, he came at me, quick for an old guy and swiped at the camera.
“Easy, this is my livelihood.”
PRAISE FOR THE ROAD TO HEAVEN
The compressed time frame adds a propulsive element to the narrative and the author is adept at deploying plot turns at appropriate and surprising intervals, lending the story a vibrancy that keeps the reader plowing forward relentlessly.
―Toronto Star
Raw and twisty, The Road to Heaven takes you through hell to get to the promised land. Painfully human, we bear witness to what happens when people's longings crash into bright lights and dark alleys. Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson's prose reads like poetry, spare, yet laden with symbolism and meaning. A bright new star is shining among us . . . a brilliant debut.
―Jane K. Cleland, author of the Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries
A taut noir that introduces Patrick Bird, a rookie PI who is as self-destructive as he is effective. This edge-of-the-chair page-turner is full of suspense, evocative settings, and unforgettable characters trapped in a web full of secrets and lies.
―Liv Spector, author of The Rich and the Dead
Witty and whip-smart, Stefanovich-Thomson dazzles his readers with fresh twists on every page. He dares you to keep up.
―Nina Dunic, author of The Clarion
Having published Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson’s Black Orchid Novella Award–winning story, it’s a special delight to welcome his first novel. From the setting — a richly evoked Toronto in the sixties — to the cynical but committed narrative voice, to the dark family dynamics that complicate the search for a missing teen, The Road to Heaven will bring this terrific new talent to broader audiences. P.I. Patrick Bird is a character I hope to encounter again, and again.
―Linda Landrigan, Editor, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine
The Road to Heaven is a compelling debut and a must read for fans of the hard-boiled genre. Stefanovich-Thomson masterfully recreates the seedier side of ’60s Toronto with pitch-perfect description in this intriguing mystery of a family in crisis. Conflicted PI Patrick Bird proves a sardonic narrator with anger issues and his own dark secrets, making him the unlikely hero tasked with finding the family's missing teenager. A beguiling and well-crafted mystery.
―Brenda Chapman, author of the Stonechild and Rouleau and the Hunter and Tate mysteries
In this taut and stylish debut, Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson plunges the reader headlong into a Toronto period piece affectionately stage lit by noir. The opening scene’s flashbulb pop exposes the loneliness and corrosive underbelly of a thickly peopled mystery. PI Patrick Bird’s dogged pursuit of a missing persons case is captured with a wry awareness of a gaping postwar generational divide and a pitiless eye for intimate affairs.
―Andrew Steinmetz, author of Because
A riveting, fast-paced mystery, with aspects of noir and historical fiction thrown in for good measure. Patrick Bird is a young, cynical detective hired by a secretive rich man to track down his missing teenage daughter, Abbie. This seemingly simple plot takes place in a fascinating setting (Toronto, Ontario, mid-1965). At the time, Toronto was rapidly expanding, and youth culture was starting to challenge pious norms in a notoriously uptight city. Did Abbie run away to join the counterculture or is something more sinister afoot? Detective Bird keeps on the case, in a well-written book with multiple plot pivots that keeps everyone guessing until the end. I hope to read more books featuring Detective Bird’s adventures in Toronto-the-not-so-Good.
―Nate Hendley, author of Atrocity on the Atlantic and The Beatle Bandit