A.S.A. Harrison is the author of two genre novels and four
non-fiction books, including a collection of essays on striptease (Revelations, Nightwood Editions, co-authored by Margaret Dragu)
and a humorous treatise on cat astrology (Zodicat Speaks,
Viking Penguin US). She is married to a visual artist and lives in Toronto, Canada.

The Monkey Murders and The Bird Burglars (featuring Shelley Black) are her first mystery novels and the initial titles in a new series. Three more Shelley Black books are in the works, each drawing on a different animal subject.

On offer:

“There’s a rumour going around that I’m an animal rights
activist. It isn’t true and I’d like to get it cleared up once
and for all.”

So says Shelley Black, in the opening lines of The Monkey Murders, the debut novel in Harrison’s ultra-clever new series, The Shelley Black Mysteries.

Meet Shelley: a 28-year-old single female freelancing from home. Steeped in the cosy materialism of her middle-class roots, she walks her dog, falls in and out of lust, and dabbles in day-trading as a way of avoiding her chosen profession, graphic design. With her soft spot for animals, Shelley is a magnet for animals in distress – but she is cynical about animal rights. In her own words: “The world is a cruel place. Get used to it because you’re not going to change it.” Unfortunately for Shelley, she has fate, circumstance and her own ambivalence to contend with.

In The Monkey Murders, Shelley is alarmed to find a monkey in her local park in the dead of Toronto winter. Her fears on the animal’s behalf lead her – against her better judgment – to an undercover job in a nearby pharmaceutical company. When the head of R&D goes missing, Shelley is drawn into a murder investigation and caught up in renegade action on behalf of the lab animals – in particular a young chimp who knows sign language.

In book two, The Bird Burglars, Shelley enters the high-stakes world of illegal trade in endangered parrots. As the story opens she stumbles on a client with a bullet hole in her head and gets stuck with the dead woman’s cockatoo. More trouble erupts when she winds up in New York, infatuated with the wealthy and eccentric aviculturist Sir Simon Dale, who enlists her help in retrieving his stolen Spix’s Macaws. But Shelley has plans of her own, as Sir Simon discovers.

Each book brings back the memorable characters in Shelley’s inner circle – from her neurotic mother and precocious younger sister to her e-mail buddy Chad, whose stock-market tips keep her afloat. Shelley’s antagonistic relationship with Detective Lombard, from the original homicide, continues to heat up, especially when her promiscuous friend Hope has an affair with him in The Bird Burglars.

The Shelley Black Mysteries are original and highly entertaining whodunits for adults of all ages and breeds. Animal hardships are handled with a light touch and the author’s narrative skill and straightforward writing style immediately engross any reader. Considering that media attention to animal rights is at an all-time high (PETA currently has close to a million members) this series could command very strong international readership. In each book Shelley ventures into an exotic animal underworld, starting with the sterile, high-security laboratories in The Monkey Murders; and the lavish New York aviaries in The Bird Burglars. And frankly, who can resist picking up titles such as these (planned for books three and four): The Dolphin Deaths and The Pig Pirates?

World Rights available
Unedited manuscript now available for
The Monkey Murders and for The Bird Burglars