PATRICK BIRD MYSTERIES

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Opposite Sully’s Gym

A missing tenant, an irate mother-in-law, and a killer hiding in a Toronto rooming house — out-of-work PI Patrick Bird is back in business.

Patrick Bird thought he was helping his mother-in-law collect back rent from a deadbeat tenant at her Ossington Avenue rooming house, not starting a new investigation. But when he discovers Jack Turner’s third-floor darkroom is demolished and the photographer is missing, the other tenants come under scrutiny: Mr. Yusuf, the international student training to be a doctor; Danny Blinken, the shifty taxi driver; and Shirley Burton, the young nurse far from home.

As Bird investigates, he uncovers information about a former tenant. James Earl Ray, who assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. just weeks earlier, had been hiding out in a room on the second floor.

The case takes Bird and the police down a path of intrigue reaching right into the centre of one of the most infamous assassinations of the twentieth century and leading our truculent PI to just about the toughest spot he could imagine.

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One of the most riveting thrillers I've ever read. Stefanovich-Thomson deftly places the reader back to 1968, following the assassination of Martin Luther King. The Toronto setting is beautifully observed, with vivid descriptions of the rooming houses, the police service, current events, even the cars and mores of the time. Stefanovich-Thomson ratchets up the tension like a master, unfolding twist after twist, to an absolutely unexpected final chapter. The best book I've read this year.
―Melodie Campbell, award-winning author of The Silent Film Star Murders

2025 EDGAR AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
2025 SHAMUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST FIRST PI NOVEL

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.

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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

About the Author

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 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. It was shortlisted for a Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award in the Best Paperback Original category and a Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award in the Best First P.I. novel category. 

The second book in the Patrick Bird Mystery Series, Opposite Sully’s Gym will be released in March 2026.

Represented by Julia Kim at The Rights Factory.

What I’m Reading

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Stray Bullets by Robert Rotenberg "I prefer tap water." Greene pulled a glass from the overhead cupboard. "Tap water and public education, the only two things I believe in." Couldn't put it down. A great read. #straybullets
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Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace (Actually, it might extend all the way up to Bucksport, but we were never able to get further north than Belfast on Route 1, whose summer traffic is, as you can imagine, unimaginable.) #DFW #considerthel
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The Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guenevere by Sir Thomas Malory "Sir Launcelot, now I well understonde that thou arte a false, recrayed knyght and a comon lechourere, and lovyste and holdiste othir ladyes, and of me thou haste dysdayne and s
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On Writing by Stephen King "It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.&qu
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All Shot Up by Chester Himes "Reminds me of Gorki," Grave Digger lisped. "The writer or the pawnbroker?" Coffin Ed asked. "The writer, Maxim. In his book called The Bystander. A boy breaks through the ice and disappears. Fol
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman "Life continues whatever you do. It's a bulldozer like that." #whatimreading #thelastdeviltodie #richardosman #thursdaymurderclub
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The Making of the English Working Class by E. P. Thompson What can I say? The time seemed right to read a 900-page book about the birth of trade unions, revolution, and resistance. "In Blackburn the members of the Female Reform Society pledged
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