Award-winning author and humorist Gordon Kirkland, has taken his innate sense of humor and combined it with his love for a good mystery to create Crossbow. The resulting novel is best described as marriage between Fargo and the darker passages of the Old Testament. Someone is killing the residents of a small Kansas town. Although the victims appear to have been randomly chosen, the killer has, in fact, decided that they must die for biblical transgressions he believes they have committed. Among the first to be slain is the County Sherriff, leaving two deputies to try to solve the case before the killer can achieve his ultimate goal of wiping what he sees as "Gomorrah on the high prairie" off the map, once and for all. The deputies are far from seasoned police professionals. Dave Simmons, the senior of the two, is doing his best to improve by learning new police techniques. He'd like to bring geographic profiling to the department, but a serious impediment to that goal is his propensity to get lost whenever he gets behind the wheel of his police cruiser. Chuck Wilson the other deputy would like to be a police dog handler. Unfortunately, the County cannot afford a properly trained police dog, so he is trying to make do with Duke, his own Springer Spaniel, a dog with an intelligence quotient just slightly lower than the average head of cabbage. Added to the mix is a missing romance author who arrived in town to interview the first murder victim just before his death, an ambitious small town newspaper reporter who gets her leads across the pillow from the junior deputy, and the grieving father of one of the victims. Just as it seems that the case has been solved with an explosive conclusion, the deputies learn that the killer was not acting alone, and that other, seemingly upstanding citizens of the town, had set the whole process in motion. As the evidence unfolds it becomes obvious that the case is going to hit the deputies much closer to home than they could have imagined. Crossbow was started during the taping of the Canadian television series, The 3-Day Novel, in which Kirkland and 11 other writers were given the challenge of each completing a novel in 72 hours. All the while, the cast were constantly followed by a camera crew filming everything from the writing process, to personal hygiene activities. Celebrated mystery novelist Ridley Pearson encouraged Kirkland to try his hand at fiction after the success their mutual friend Dave Barry had with Big Trouble. Pearson says, "Not only is Gordon accomplished in his field, but he is funny! I don't know if you have ever tried being funny on paper, but it is one of life's miracles. Gordon should probably be sainted. But don't take my word for it; just read him." Parental Advisory: Some language and scenes may not be appropriate for all ages.
Kirkland is a three-time recipient of the Stephen Leacock Award of Merit as a finalist for the Leacock Medal for his books, Justice Is Blind - And Her Dog Just Peed In My Cornflakes (1999), Never Stand Behind A Loaded Horse (2004), and When My Mind Wanders It Brings Back Souvenirs (2005). His other books, I Think I'm Having One of Those Decades (2006), I May Be Big But I Didn't Cause That Solar Eclipse (2007) and Holly Jolly Frivolity (2009) also received critical acclaim. His latest book, Crossbow, is a darkly comedic mystery, and his first foray into full-length fiction. From 1994 to 2007 readers in both Canada and the United States enjoyed his weekly syndicated humor column, Gordon Kirkland At Large. He has been a frequent guest on radio and television talk shows in both countries. In 2007, BookExpo-America cited him as one of the seven notable book industry "characters." One of his syndicated columns was incorporated into the collection of the Harry Chapin Archives in New York. He has garnered a very large and loyal fan base in the United States and Canada, as well as elsewhere around the world. In addition he has worked with and enjoys a strong mutual respect and friendship with other authors including Ridley Pearson, Dave Barry, Lynn Johnston, Garrison Keillor, Jeffery Deaver, and many more. Gordon Kirkland has been a workshop leader and keynote speaker at dozens of writer's conferences, festivals, and university programs over the past ten years. This includes three sessions of the University of Dayton's Erma Bombeck Writer's Workshop, six years on the faculty of the Southern California Writer's Conference, as well as many more. He has lectured at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, BC), Ball State University (Muncie, Indiana), The University of Georgia (Athens, GA), and Florida First Coast Community College (Jacksonville, FL.) In 2009, Kirkland was one of the stars of The 3-Day Novel, a television series on Canada's BookTelevision, in which 12 Canadian writers were locked in a large bookstore with the task of writing a full novel in just 72 hours. It was carried out under the watchful eye of television cameras, store customers, and with numerous interruptions aimed at breaking the writers' trains of thought. Gordon lives in Pitt Meadows, BC with, Diane, and their adopted Labrador Retriever, Tara. They have two grown sons.
