Going to Beautiful

by Anthony Bidulka

25 November – 9 December 2024

Awards:
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 ALBERTA BOOK PUBLISHING AWARDS – MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOK OF THE YEAR CATEGORY

SHORTLISTED FOR SASKATCHEWAN BOOK AWARD – FICTION CATEGORY

WINNER – CRIMEWRITERS OF CANADA AWARD OF EXCELLENCE – 2023 BEST CRIME NOVEL

WINNER – INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK (IPPY) AWARD – CANADA WEST BEST FICTION 2023 GOLD MEDALIST

International chef Jake Hardy has it all. Celebrity, thriving career, plenty of friends, a happy family and faithful dog. Until one day when a tragic accident tears it all apart. Struggling to recover, Hardy finds himself in a strange new world—a snow-swept prairie town that time forgot—a place where nothing makes sense. Cold is beautiful. Simple is complex. And doubts begin to surface about whether Jake’s tragedy was truly an accident after all. As the sun sets in the Land of Living Skies, Hardy and his glamourous, seventy-eight-year-old transgender neighbour find themselves ensnared in multiple murders separated by decades. In Bidulka’s “love letter to life on the prairies” he delivers a story of grief and loss that manages to burst with joy, tenderness and hope. Redolent of his earlier works, Going to Beautiful brings us unexpected, under-represented characters in settings that immediately feel familiar and beloved. Beautiful—a place where what you need may not be what you were looking for.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anthony Bidulka has developed a body of work that often features his Saskatchewan roots and underrepresented, diverse main characters. He tells serious stories in accessible, entertaining, often humorous ways.

Bidulka’s novels have been shortlisted for numerous awards. Going to Beautiful is the 2023 winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Award for Best Crime Novel and also won the Independent Publisher Book Award as the Canada West Best Fiction Gold Medalist. Flight of Aquavit was awarded the Lambda Literary Award for Best Men’s Mystery, making Bidulka the first Canadian to win in that category.