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The Dark Side

A Collection of Mysteries & Thrillers

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About The Book

Welcome to The Dark Side, a collection of excerpts from some of Simon & Schuster Canada’s most terrifying, mysterious, and suspenseful novels. From Nick Cutter’s old-school thriller, The Troop, to Kathy Reichs’ internationally bestselling Bones series, these stories will leave you trembling.

The Dark Side ebook includes excerpts from:

Bones of the Lost by Kathy Reichs

The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper

Shoot the Dog by Brad Smith

Eye of the Storm by Rob Pobi

The Troop by Nick Cutter

Open Secret by Deryn Collier

A Murder of Crows by David Rotenberg

The Guilty by Sean Slater

Death of a Patriot by Don Gutteridge

Stranglehold by Robert Rotenberg

Freak by Jennifer Hillier

Reading Group Guide

This reading group guide for Open Secret, by Deryn Collier, includes an introduction and discussion questions for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

After the abrupt end to his military career, Bern Fortin has settled into an uneasy peace in Kootenay Landing—a peace he knows can’t last.

Small-time drug dealer Seymour Melnychuk is found dead after being shot in the forehead. In a seemingly unrelated incident, Gary Dowd abandons his van while crossing the US border. Could the incidents be connected? As Bern and police constable Maddie Schilling close in on the killer, they soon find that secrets can’t remain buried forever – not even their own. 

Questions for discussion

1. The Kootenay Landing community is, to some degree, supported by the financial and health benefits of the marijuana industry. Discuss the importance and the detriments of individuals breaking the law for something they believe is their right. 

2. Early in the novel, we are introduced to Cindy Forsberg as a young girl in an abusive and poverty-stricken home. Why do you think the author chose to include this narrative of familial abuse within Indigenous communities? 

3. In what ways are women marginalized in the book? In what ways are they empowered?

4. What are Gary Dowd’s motivations for marrying Cindy’s adopted sister, Michelle? Do you feel compassion for Gary?

5. Bern Fortin takes on various roles throughout the book. He is a lover in Montreal and New York, a soldier in Rwanda, and a coroner in Kootenay Landing. How does he adapt to these roles? In what ways does he remain the same?

6. Nature acts as both a benevolent and malevolent force throughout the book. How does the book explore the concept of nature?

7. Both the growing and the sharing of food play significant roles in the book. What do you think food symbolizes in Open Secret?

8.“A soldier’s instinct is a terrible thing, as is a police officer’s. At a certain point, training takes over. It’s not a choice. Society depends on this fact (page 421).” How does the book explore the idea of instinct?

9. What is the significance of Aimee’s abduction?

10. Was Gia justified in her actions?

About The Authors

Photograph © Marie-Reine Mattera
Kathy Reichs

Kathy Reichs’s first novel Déjà Dead, published in 1997, won the Ellis Award for Best First Novel and was an international bestseller. Evil Bones is Reichs’s twenty-fourth novel featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Reichs was also a producer of Fox Television’s longest running scripted drama, Bones, which was based on her work and her novels. One of very few forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, Reichs divides her time between Charlotte, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina. Visit her at KathyReichs.com or follow her on X @KathyReichs, Instagram @KathyReichs, or Facebook @KathyReichsBooks.

Photograph by Heidi Pyper
Andrew Pyper

Andrew Pyper is the internationally bestselling author of ten previous novels, including The Demonologist, which won the International Thriller Writers award for Best Hardcover Novel, and The Killing Circle, which was selected a New York Times Best Crime Novel of the Year. He lives in Toronto. Visit AndrewPyper.com and follow him on Twitter @AndrewPyper.

Photograph by Lorraine Sommerfeld
Brad Smith

Brad Smith was born and raised in southern Ontario. He has worked as a farmer, signalman, insulator, truck driver, bartender, schoolteacher, maintenance mechanic, roofer, and carpenter. He lives in an eighty-year-old farmhouse near the north shore of Lake Erie. Red Means Run, the first novel in his Virgil Cain series, was named among the Year’s Best Crime Novels by Booklist.

Photograph (c) Robert Lacombe
Robert Pobi

Rob Pobi is an internationally bestselling novelist whose books have been sold in fifteen countries. He does most of his writing at an isolated cabin in the mountains. He divides his time between Montreal, Northern California, and Florida. Visit him at RobertPobi.com.

Nick Cutter

Nick Cutter is the author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller The Troop (which is currently being developed for film with producer James Wan), The Deep, Little Heaven, and The Handyman Method, cowritten with Andrew F. Sullivan. Nick Cutter is the pseudonym for Craig Davidson, whose much-lauded literary fiction includes Rust and Bone, The Saturday Night Ghost Club, and, most recently, the short story collection Cascade. His story “Medium Tough” was selected by author Jennifer Egan for The Best American Short Stories 2014. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

Photograph © Laura Wilby
Deryn Collier

Deryn Collier grew up in Ottawa and Montreal and is a graduate of McGill University. She now lives in Nelson, British Columbia, with her family and welcomes visitors to her blog at DerynCollier.com.

Photograph © John Reeves
David Rotenberg

David Rotenberg has published five mysteries set in modern China as well as the Canadian bestselling historical fiction novel Shanghai. He is the artistic director of the internationally renowned Professional Actors Lab. He has directed on Broadway, in South Africa, in major regional theatres in North America and for television. He directed the first Canadian play staged in the People’s Republic of China—in Mandarin. He lives in Toronto.

sean slater
Sean Slater

Sean Slater is the pseudonym for Vancouver Police Officer Sean Sommerville. As a police officer, Sommerville works in Canada's poorest slum, the Downtown East Side—an area rife with poverty, mental illness, drug use, prostitution, and gang warfare. He has investigated everything from frauds and extortions to homicides. Sommerville has written numerous columns and editorials for the city newspaper. When not patrolling the “Skids,” Sean is working hard on the next novel in the Jacob Striker series.

Don Gutteridge

Don Gutteridge is the author of forty books: fiction, poetry and scholarly works. He taught high school for seven years and then joined the Faculty of Education at Western University in the Department of English Methods. He is now professor emeritus and lives in London, Ontario.

(c) Ted Feld Photography
Robert Rotenberg

Robert Rotenberg is the author of several bestselling novels, including Old City Hall, The Guilty Plea, Stray Bullets, Stranglehold, Heart of the City, Downfall, and What We Buried. He is a criminal lawyer in Toronto with his firm Rotenberg Shidlowski Jesin. He is also a television screenwriter and a writing teacher. Visit him at RobertRotenberg.com or follow him on X @RobertRotenberg.

Darren Blohowiak
Jennifer Hillier

Jennifer Hillier is the USA TODAY bestselling and award-winning author of Things We Do in the Dark, Little Secrets, Jar of Hearts, The Butcher, Freak, and Creep. A Filipino Canadian born and raised in the Toronto area, she spent eight years in Seattle, which is where all her books are set. She now lives in Oakville, Ontario, Canada with her husband and son. Visit her on the web at JenniferHillierBooks.com.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster (March 4, 2014)
  • Length: 106 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781476785400

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