Gail Bowen

Born Gail Barthlomew in Toronto in 1942, Gail learned to read by age three from tombstones in Prospect Cemetery, a facility that was extremely useful when she was struck by polio two years later.

She was educated at the University of Toronto (B.A.), University of Waterloo (M.A.), and the University of Saskatchewan, where she almost completed a Ph.D. After a series of extension-course teaching contracts in small-town locations across Saskatchewan and a ten-year sessional stint with the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, University of Regina, she was granted tenure in the English department of the university in 1986, one year before the publication of 1919; The Love Letters of George and Adelaide, a novella written in collaboration with Ron Marken. She is currently an associate professor and head of the English department at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College.

While she has had four plays produced at Reginaís Globe TheatreóDancing in Poppies (in 1993), an adaptation of 1919; Beauty and the Beast (1n 1993), The Tree (in 1994); and an adaptation of Peter Pan (in 1997)óGail has received widespread acclaim for her detective series featuring Joanne Kilbourn, a fictional character who has much in common with her creator. Both are teachers at Saskatchewan universities, sometime TV panelists, and each has several children and a politically connected husband. In Bowenís case, the husband is Ted Bowen, the children Hildy (29), Max (27), and Nat (22) (she also has two miraculous grandchildren: Madeleine and Alejandra Bowen Diaz). The seven books in the series offer challenging puzzles and motives with a fair sprinkling of clues. Pale Criminal, the eighth novel in the series, will be published by McClelland & Stewart in September 2002.

So popular have these novels been that Deadly Appearances, Murder at the Mendel, The Wandering Soul Murders, A Colder Kind of Death, A Killing Spring and Verdict in Blood have appeared as made-for-television movies. But it is the added elements of the books with which her readers empathize: complex family interactions alongside every-day domestic details, prairie urban life and work, the ever-present prairie weather, and the often-uneasy presence of the aboriginal peoples.

Selected publications:
Deadly Appearances, 1990
Murder at the Mendel, 1991
The Wandering Soul Murders, 1992
A Colder Kind of Death. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1994
A Killing Spring. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1996
Verdict in Blood. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1998
Burying Ariel. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2000
Pale Criminal. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2002

Awards:
Winner, Crime Writers of Canadaís Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel, 1995 ñ A Colder Kind of Death

E-mail:
gbowen@sifc.edu