Bestselling and award-winning author Todd Babiak returns with an immersive and affecting story about a teenager's fascination with an enigmatic new woman in town whose past is catching up with her.Summer 1989. Fourteen-year-old Adam Lisinski has a lot going for him in Monument, Colorado. He's hoping to be a starter on his high school football team, even though he's only a sophomore. He has a part-time job at Eugene's Gas Stop where he works with his best friend, Simon Kinoro. He'd like to see his girlfriend, Phoebe Brandt, more if he could, but he makes do with time alone at Monument Lake after her ballet lessons. He and his mother, Helen, have a close relationship, but Adam knows she worries. And then Beatrice Cyr comes to town. From the second she steps out of his neighbour Marv Walker's truck, Adam is mesmerized. He neglects everything that matters to him and he's desperate to be around her, even if he's confused about what she wants or where she comes from. He...

Christopher Kruse has moved to the south of France with his wife and daughter to become a better man—to escape his past as a high-priced security agent and his guilt over old wrongs. But when death comes crashing into their newly idyllic life, the Kruses find themselves drawn into a web of political gamesmanship and murder. When his wife disappears, Christopher must draw on his old instincts to find her, ahead of the police and two sinister members of a Corsican crime family. As Christopher’s desperate search leads him closer to his wife, it pulls him deeper into the dangerous machinations of the most powerful leaders in the country.Come Barbarians is a gripping novel of murder, revenge and high stakes, balanced by moments of love, loyalty and loss. Todd Babiak has created a complex, magnetic character forced to confront his bleakest hour and his darkest impulses.

TV presenter and man-about-town Toby Ménard has it all. But in the days after his father has a startling accident, Toby makes a series of terrible, wincing choices. As a result, he is fired from his job as an etiquette commentator and loses his superb condo, his beautiful girlfriend and his beloved BMW. Worse still, he must move back to the grey Montreal suburb of Dollard-des-Ormeaux and live in his parents' basement. With his silent BlackBerry and a sudden absence of friends or saviours, Toby feels he has reached the limits of misery and humiliation. But his father' s increasingly frightening behaviour is where the real trouble-- and risk-- lies. Who is this man? What can Toby do? Then, in a moment of misplaced gallantry, Toby encounters an unstable francophone mother who disappears and abandons her two-year-old son, Hugo, to his care. Trapped with a toddler and forced to deal with his father' s tragedies, Toby emerges from the basement bungalow of his...

A local phenomenon goes national! This sparkling novel has the warmth and wide appeal of Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Cafe and the wit of Will Ferguson. What Alexander McCall Smith did with 44 Scotland Street, Todd Babiak does with The Garneau Block. This addictive and charming, laugh-out-loud funny novel enchanted readers when it was serialized in the Edmonton Journal in the fall of 2005 — and now, The Garneau Block makes its national debut. The Garneau Block follows the knowable citizens of the adored and hated city of Edmonton, capturing what we connect to in local stories and what is universal about modern life. Here, in what can only be described as a storytelling tour-de-force, we meet the warm, endearing, and delightfully flawed residents of a fictional cul-de-sac in the city’s Garneau neighbourhood just after the scandalous death of a neighbour and the sudden news that their land is about to be repossessed by the university. When mysterious signs begin to appear duct-taped to trees saying only LET’S FIX IT, the block — including a sacked university professor, a once-ambitious, knocked-up haiku expert living in her parents’ basement, an aging actor whose dreams are slipping away, and a quiet but polite stranger — is galvanized to band together in a wild attempt to save their homes. And when regular people put their dreams in motion, anything can happen — namely, political machinations, personal revelations, a public uproar, and unforeseen love. From a young author whose name will soon be on everyone’s lips come the most lovable Canadian characters since Dave and Morley, and a page-turning-good story. Readers nationwide won’t be able to get enough of The Garneau Block. *For the next while, David talked about the merits of joining the PC party. Why fight it, really? No political organization is perfect, of course, but by giving your support to the Liberals or the New Democrats, what are you doing? Further dooming the City of Edmonton. Further empowering Calgary and the rural caucus. “Nonsense, David,” said Abby. “That’s the sort of talk that leads to tyranny, and we’ve had plenty enough of it in this province.” “Tyranny she says! Tyranny!” David took a few steps in Tammy’s direction, so they formed a political triangle. “No wonder the left is so flabby.”*–From The Garneau Block From the Hardcover edition.Review"Babiak’s highest achievement, though, lies in introducing us to the motley charms of the people and the city, whether they be bohemians who shop at Value Village or grandees who dine on bison with blueberry sauce at the Hardware Grill. If there really are a million stories in Champion City, let this one be the first."— Quill & Quire “The Garneau Block is screamingly funny. There is at least one laugh on every single page. This novel is fast-paced, savvy, bursting with vivid characters. A celebration of Edmonton! Satire that sucker punches everything sacred. Babiak comes out swinging.” — Lisa Moore, author of Alligator“As only the best writers can, Todd Babiak has taken a small patch of turf and, through sparkling satire and a passionate eye, made it a world. A neighborhood in Edmonton is about to get a lot of honorary citizens.” — Ian McGillis, author of A Tourist’s Guide to Glengarry “Babiak’s book will make you snicker and guffaw in public places. The Garneau Block is about an oddball cast of characters in a make-believe cul-de-sac in Edmonton, where life is one nonstop block party rife with political intrigue, neighbourly shenanigans, death, and romance.” — Canadian Living ** *“...cleanly written, inventive, fast-moving, stuffed with zingers about everything from Satanists to cellphone ringtones, extremely affectionate toward its nutty cast of players, and laugh-out-loud funny. . . . Babiak’s highest achievement, though, lies in introducing us to the motley charms of the people and the city, whether they be bohemians who shop at Value Village or grandees who dine on bison with blueberry sauce at the Hardware Grill. If there really are a million stories in Champion City, let this one be the first.” — Quill & Quire * ̶... About the AuthorTodd Babiak is the culture columnist for the Edmonton Journal. His first novel, Choke Hold (Turnstone, 2000), won the Writers Guild of Alberta’s Henry Kreisel Award for Best First Book, and was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. It was also optioned for film. A native of Leduc, Alberta, Todd Babiak lives in Edmonton.

Security agent Christopher Kruse lost his wife and young daughter in the south of France. In Come Barbarians he investigated and stopped the people responsible for their deaths. He has remained in France working for the ambitious mayor of Paris, wandering streets haunted by his lost family and watching over a woman and her daughter. But when a charismatic politician is murdered by a grenade attack in the Jewish quarter, Kruse catapults back into the maelstrom of organized crime and dirty politics. A young woman named Zoe, working for a shadowy division of the French clandestine services, hires Kruse and his old colleague and mentor Tzvi to hunt down and assassinate the killer. The mission leads him not to redemption but down a rabbit hole of deception, violence and unlikely romance.With edge-of-your seat action and crackling tension, Son of France is a non-stop political thriller and engrossing new novel from the #1 bestselling author Todd Babiak.

A riotous new novel from the #1 bestselling author of the hit sensation The Garneau Block. By all accounts, Stanley Moss is an average man. A retired florist, he lives quietly with his wife, Frieda, in a modest bungalow in Edmonton. Stricken with cancer, Stanley has few wishes for the time he has left, except perhaps for his son to call him back. But on the day of an appointment with the palliative care specialist, Stanley experiences a boom and a flash, and then, a remarkable transformation. He discovers he can read minds. He can fulfill people’s dreams. He has the strength of ten men. And, his illness has vanished. What could this mean? Could it be, as his New Age friend Alok believes, that Stanley’s powers are divine? Is Stanley, a confirmed agnostic, the new Messiah? With Alok and a reluctant Frieda in tow, Stanley heads to Banff (the most sacred place on earth) to look for answers and find a way to use his new powers for good. He encounters there his disciples — a Vancouver TV executive, a pro hockey player from the Prairies and a teenage girl from suburban Montreal — and together they start The Stan, a new religion, and invite the world to join. When the world shows up, along with the international media and an angry long-dead spiritualist, things take an unexpected turn. Satirical, fantastical, filled with humour and pointed observation about organized religion in the modern world, The Book of Stanley is a provocative comedy about life, love, and devotion in all its guises. From the Hardcover edition.Review“Todd Babiak is my new favourite social satirist.” — Toronto Star “The neurotic high comedy of the best Woody Allen films.” — Calgary Herald From the Hardcover edition.About the AuthorTodd Babiak is the culture columnist for the Edmonton Journal and author of the #1 bestseller The Garneau Block, which was longlisted for The Scotiabank Giller Prize. Babiak’s first novel, Choke Hold (Turnstone, 2000) won the Writers Guild of Alberta Henry Kreisel Award for Best First Book, and was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Also an award-winning screenwriter and former Lord Mayor of Old Strathcona, Babiak lives and writes in Edmonton. From the Hardcover edition.