Anne Emery won the 2019 Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence for Best Crime Novel, for Though the Heavens Fall. In 2023, Fenian Street was a finalist for the Award of Excellence for Best Traditional Mystery. She won the 2007 Award for Best First Crime Novel, for Sign of the Cross. (The CWC's awards were formerly called the Arthur Ellis Awards.) She also won a Silver Medal in the 2011 Independent Publisher Book Awards (international competition), and the 2011 Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction, both for Children in the Morning. 

Anne Emery was born in Halifax, NS and grew up in Moncton, NB. She always wanted to be a writer. She wrote her first mystery story in Miss Dunphy’s Grade 3 class. The title was “An Interesting Scene”. But it wasn’t all that interesting and it did not win any awards. Things have improved since then. She went on to graduate from St. F.X. University and Dalhousie Law School, worked as a lawyer and researcher, and had her first novel published by ECW Press in 2006. Anne lives in Halifax, and travels frequently to Ireland and other favoured destinations. 

Photo Credit: Mick Quinn / mqphoto.com

She is the author of fifteen novels. Fourteen of the books are members of the Collins-Burke Mystery Series:  Sign of the Cross (2006), Obit (2007), Barrington Street Blues (2008), Cecilian Vespers (2009), Children in the Morning (2010), Death at Christy Burke’s (2011), Blood on a Saint (2013), Ruined Abbey (2015), Lament for Bonnie (2016), Though the Heavens Fall (2018), Postmark Berlin (2020), Fenian Street (2022), Counted Among the Dead (2024), and Declan (2026). The twelfth book is a standalone historical mystery, The Keening: A Mystery of Gaelic Ireland (2021). 

 

Declan (2026) Father Brennan Burke’s father, Declan, gathered up his family and fled Ireland under cover of night four decades ago, after disobeying an order from his Officer Commanding in the IRA. Declan has not set foot in Ireland since. Until now. Why now? And why not? What could go wrong after all this time? But sons Brennan and Terry, knowing their father’s checkered past, suspect there is more to this sudden impulse than merely “It’s time I returned.” So they insist on going with him. And sure enough, when they get to Ireland, there are men in the shadows. Knowing. Waiting to settle old scores. And things do go wrong; a member of the family disappears. As Brennan tries to find him, to put things right, he learns things about his father that his father had never wanted revealed. And the revelations are not limited to the Burke family’s long campaign against the British occupiers of their country. Some matters are much more personal. 

 

 

 

Counted Among the Dead (2024): Burke and Collins are terrific characters, and they work very well together, but the book's third main character is the city in which the story is set: Halifax, Nova Scotia, which Emery brings vividly to life as a place full of hidden corners and dark secrets. She really is a fine writer; not just a good storyteller but a stylist as well: every word of her prose feels carefully chosen for the way it interacts with the words around it. A fine entry in a wonderful series. - David Pitt, Booklist

 

Fenian Street, 2022: IT'S A TEN FROM ME! seriously though this meander through the history of Ireland is so well detailed and researched you’d feel you were immersed in it yourself. While it’s most definitely a thriller, it’s a thriller with heart. The journey through young Shay’s life from growing up in the poverty of the corpos right through to joining the garda, every tiny detail is perfect and it was a joy to watch the making of the man so to speak. Father Brennan is written so well, I’m sure I’ve confessed my sins to him at some point. The narration deserves huge applause as it was beautifully done. Again I can’t express how beautifully written and researched this is covering the troubles of the times with a real heart and firm question marks on the British involvement in Ireland and the north. I wonder was the author there?!  - Jo Lee, NetGalley

 

Declan: Fans of the long-running series will be absolutely delighted. A terrific entry in this deservedly acclaimed series. -       David Pitt, Booklist

"Postmark Berlin cements Anne Emery's position among the top half-dozen crime writers in Canada." - Ottawa Review of Books 

"A master at creating a sense of place, and developing characters.” – Library Journal (Starred Review)

 

To hear Anne's interview with Shelagh Rogers on CBC's The Next Chapter, click here (MP3 download).

 

Lament for Bonnie: Reviewers have called the book "an engaging mystery" and "irresistible" (Publishers Weekly), "a fine mystery with terrific characters and a solid plot, an irresistible read" (Globe & Mail) and referred to its "soaring narrative arc" (Celtic Life International).

Ruined Abbey: "Troubles thriller bloody brilliant." - Nick Martin, Winnipeg Free Presss

"One of Canada's finest novelists" - Jim Napier, Ottawa Review of Books. "One of the best of Canada's new group of crime authors" - Margaret Cannon, Globe and Mail

Ruined Abbey: "Winning mystery stands on its own. Readers . . . will want to grab a pint and pull up a stool next to any of the Burke clan." - Karen Keefe, Booklist Starred Review

"Eighth novel in the excellent Father Brennan Burke series ...  a really tightly plotted historical with solid characters and the elegant style we expect from Emery." - Margaret Cannon, Globe and Mail.

 

Fenian Street. Brilliant Halifax author Anne Emery has produced an absolute gem of a murder mystery in Fenian Street. - Nick Martin, Winnipeg Free Press