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Danny Rourke has often reinvented himself, going from scrappy street kid to small-time gangster to street racer to classical scholar to high-paid corporate fixer. Although he quickly rises to best in class, he’s never afraid to leave one life behind and move on to the next, always keeping one step ahead of the past. But on the night of October 31, 1984, while he’s delivering a lecture to a packed house at Assumption University, a dark figure approaches with a revolver and fires twice at point-blank range.
Praise for Pity the Minotaur
In the final and most compelling lecture of his career, Danny Rourke exhorts his audience to ‘Write like your life depends on it,’ which is precisely how author Ric deMeulles approaches the craft. Strap in as deMeulles propels you along the serpentine path this brilliant, tormented young man chooses, and through his eyes, confront the lurking demons that possess us all. Another triumphant work from a literary master.
Sean Costello, author of nine novels, including Squall, Here After and Last Call.
Danny Rourke is the most compelling character I have encountered in a novel in a long time. In leading us into his mystery, Ric deMeulles takes us somewhere unexpected, towards the centre of the labyrinth, where we come face to face with the abiding human questions of love, loss, and the need for forgiveness. Rourke's story will both enthral and change you. I can think of no higher praise for a novel
Bruce K. Ward, author of Redeeming the Enlightenment and of Remembering the End: Dostoevsky as Prophet to Modernity. He is professor emeritus, Thorneloe University.
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Quinn blames destiny on all his problems, messing up his life spectacularly. When he tries to make a fresh start he finds himself at the center of a mystery involving a bombed war memorial and an abducted autistic girl. The cops out to nail him but Quinn figures he's got to go it alone, never realizing he's being helped by the least likely candidate imaginable.
Praise for Quinn
“Quinn is a sly and irreverent yarn that continually tests and pokes fun at the endearing cast of characters. You'll roll your eyes, laugh aloud, and come to love the titular character with the world's largest chip on his shoulder. And as the madcap tale unfolds, Ric de Meulles emerges as a sharp-witted novelist.”
Ayesha Barmania, Documentary maker and radio producer
"I really enjoyed Quinn. If genes could talk this is how they’d sound. Ric deMeulles has done a fine job in relaying a family history in all its glory, agony and love. This is a story that drips with atmosphere. Read it, you’ll be charmed.
Martin Knight, best-selling author of Common People and Battersea Girl
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Ricky Canning knows only three things for certain: he's got a bullet fragment in his brain, the voice coming from his toaster belongs to the Prince of Darkness, and his guardian angel is missing. When he brings this problem to the man at the junkshop he makes Ricky a device to protect him from the evil voices, but when the crew at the barbershop see device on Ricky's head they turn him into the town fool. But that's when his guardian angel appears and comes to Ricky's rescue.
This is a story about cruelty, evil and the mysterious power of kindness.
Junkshop Angel is a novelette consisting of 12,000 words.
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The Ramasseur is a collector of his own lost memory. He wanders through the misty night, getting closer to discovering who he is, who has killed and who he must kill.
A magically-realistic novel in the form of a story-sequence, Ramasseur is a series of exquisitely crafted, highly readable tales that conspires to draw readers into the puzzle of memory and identity. While these gripping little tales of beasts, prophets and saints are set in a remote mining town, deMeulles' sense of place draws to mind David Adams Richards's Miramichi and Joyce's Dublin.
Praise for Ramasseur
Ramasseur is a brilliant novel. deMeulles has transformed "the Porcupine" into a magic land of myth, legend, story, and mystery. There are stories of faith, of lost children, of a witch on a mountain, of strange priests and an Irish storyteller. This is magic realism at its best. Stories within stories make for a compelling read.
Veronica Ross, author of Hannah B. the Carolyn Archer mysteries
Imagistic and wildly “geeways,” this is a furious telling of people surviving (or not) in tough country. No sepia-toned nostalgia here, the North Ontario sense of humour is rendered intact—black and bitter. deMeulles employs a rock ’em sock ’em style but evokes a very recognizable world: sex and betrayal, the family secrets no one will tell you until it’s far too late, the restless, hungry kids with fabulous nicknames, the town drunks and loose women, larger than death, stalking gravel streets or pacing on cold linoleum.
Mansel Robinson, author of Ghost Trains, Spitting Slag, and The Heart As It Lived
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16-year-old River Melnyk arrives in a small mining town determined to find out what happened to her dead mother seventeen years earlier. When the locals warn her off she finds her only friend is Hickey, a man old enough to be her father. She falls under his spell and believes he will lead her to answers, but when he dies suddenly she begins to slip into a nightmare world.
Praise for Hickey's Dead
“Ric deMeulles weaves a powerful tale – thrilling, mysterious and haunting. The stories in Hickey’s Dead will drag you forward into the dark and lead you into the sacred. Herein lies salvation – not for the damned, but for the brokenhearted. Sit by the fire and listen.”
Pam Bustin, author of the award-willing Mostly Happy
“Ric deMeulles’ new novel, Hickey’s Dead, initially seems to be a straightforward murder mystery but quickly reveals itself to be a well crafted narrative palimpsest that is both quirky and elegant in its stylings. A strange death by conveyor belt, a young girl lost, and an old manwandering onthe shores of a river ina northern mining town, this novel speaks to the fabric of northern Ontario and will resonate with those who live here, or who have lived here. deMeulles draws the reader into the middle of things, starting off with a bang, and pulling you through the narrative with skill and artistry. This is a novel not to be missed!”
Kim Fahner, teacher, poet and author of The Narcoleptic Madonna, Braille on Water, You Must Imagine the Cold Here
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A unique collection of poems, stories and essays written by nine young men in custody.This writing is raw and unpolished, filled alternately with anger, despair, longing and deep sadness, but also with release and hope.
This was produced for the authors and the staff of the Cecil Facer Correctional Facility.
Praise for Voices From Behind the Walls
"Rough and real, tough and raw, clear-eyed and surprisingly tender."
Joe Florito, award-winning columnist with The Toronto Star
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