FIFTY-FOUR PIGS

For readers of Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series comes a lighthearted mystery with an incredible sense of place

A swine barn explodes near a lakeside Manitoba town, putting veterinarian Dr. Peter Bannerman on a collision course with murder and a startling conspiracy.

Peter is an odd duck, obsessed with logic and measurable facts, an obsession he puts to good use in his veterinary practice. When a murder is connected to the swine barn explosion and his friend Tom becomes the prime suspect, Peter feels compelled to put his reasoning skills, and his dog Pippin's remarkable nose, to use to help clear him.

The situation darkens with a second murder and a series of break-ins, including at Peter's house and clinic, but Peter has a hard time knowing when he is out of his depth, despite warnings from his brother-in-law Kevin, an RCMP officer. It becomes increasingly clear that something extraordinary is behind all this, possibly international in scope.

Ultimately Peter finds himself out in the middle of frozen Lake Winnipeg during a blizzard, fighting for his life and confronting a horrifying realization he had been blind to all along.

Philipp Schott was born in Germany and grew up in Saskatoon. He now lives in Winnipeg, where he practises veterinary medicine, writes, and shares an old house on the Assiniboine River with his wife, two teenagers, three cats, and a dog. His first book, The Accidental Veterinarian, was a bestseller and was translated into four languages. The Willow Wren is his quasi-fictional account of his family before, during, and after World War II.