Russell Wangersky

Describes the lives of two orphan girls, one from the Caucasus who is sold into the sex trade, the other who is adopted into the wealthy Zane family of New York, whose unwitting involvement in the world of international crime precipitates their downfall.

A dark, psychological thriller about a man named Walt, a grocery store cleaner who collects the shopping lists people leave in the store and discard without thought. In his fifties, abandoned, he says, by his now-missing wife Mary, Walt is pursued by police detectives unsatisfied with the answers he's given about her disappearance. Almost invisible to the people who pass him every day, the grocery lists he collects, written on everything from cancelled cheques to mortgage statements to office stationary, give him a personal hold over those who both ignore him and unwittingly disclose facets of their lives to him. When a new cold case squad is formed in St. John's to look into Mary's disappearance, the detectives begin to realize that Walt may be involved in more than just his wife's disappearance.

This is the twenty-fifth edition of this nationally acclaimed anthology, which has established itself as Canada's most popular fiction anthology, presenting the best new Canadian writers from coast to coast. As well as receiving high praise every year, it is an important indicator of up-and-coming writers.