This psychological mystery introduces David Morgan and Miranda Quin, two maverick and culturally sophisticated Toronto police detectives. When a man is found dead in a garden pond in the wealthy heart of Toronto’s Rosedale neighbourhood Morgan is lead into speculations about Japanese ornamental koi fish, and Quin into a chilling sequence of revelations that could destroy her. But the real mystery begins not with the deceased but with a woman who walks onto the crime scene and without emotion declares herself to be the victim’s mistress. From that point on everything changes, even the past.

John Moss writes mysteries because nothing brings life into focus like the murder of strangers. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2006 in recognition of his career as a professor of Canadian literature with over a score of books in his field, John moved progressively away from literary criticism to creative writing, before settling comfortably into the Quin and Morgan series which now occupies his writing efforts full time. He and his wife, Beverley Haun, whose book, Inventing ‘Easter Island’, grew out of her work as a cultural theorist and their travel adventures as scuba divers, share a stone farmhouse with numerous ghosts in Peterborough, Ontario. 

John Moss' profile page

Moss skillfully enlarges his story to make it more than a murder mystery: it is a life mystery .... This too is a powerful novel.

Star Phoenix, The

Moss spins a mystery that sparkles with dynamic setting with vivid pictures, resonant insights and a spin on mystery storytelling that is as multilayered as it is beautiful, Moss teases us down the path to resolution. Still Waters is a mystery told by a storyteller par excellence and is not to be missed.

Hamilton Spectator, The

John Moss weaves a most unusual plot connecting the past and the present. He produces unexpected events and hints of secrets hidden in the minds of his characters.

Connie's Reviews Online Blog

Still Waters is both an assured debut in the mystery category and offbeat in the charming way only a newbie can be ... If anything, Moss' character-driven writing in Still Waters reminds me of the involving work of the British write Reginal Hill in the famed Dalziel and Pascoe series.

Eric McMillan, Town-Crier

Mosses' writing is as lush as the Canadian fall setting and as exotic as the Koi themselves. The book is brimming with imagery and he writes wonderfully clever dialogues between Quin and Morgan. They put me in mind of Reginald Hill's Daziel and Pascoe, or perhaps the clever cocktail commentary of Hammett's Thin Man duo, Nick and Nora Charles ... I look forward to another Quin and Morgan mystery ...

Reviewing the Evidence

The novel is at once playfully intellectual and grittily realistic.

Canadian Literature