On a recent trip to the grocery store, Nelson author Deryn Collier was stopped by a reader. “I really think you should be writing. Go home. Right now. I need to know what happens to Bern.”

Coroner Bern Fortin, protagonist in Collier’s debut novel Confined Space, has that effect on a lot of readers. To find out why – as well as why it was chosen by library users across the Kootenay and Boundary regions as this year’s One Book One Kootenay (OBOK) selection – you need to read the book, and in fact the Kootenay Library Federation encourages Kootenay booklovers to do just that.

Copies of Confined Space are available at every library in the region. Then mystery-lovers and others will want to come to a special presentation by Deryn Collier at the Cranbrook Public Library on Thursday, October 24 at 7 p.m.

Confined Space introduces Bern Fortin, coroner for a small Kootenay town, as he investigates a murder in a brewery. Local readers may find the setting familiar since Collier drew on her experiences of when she worked for a time at Columbia Brewery in Creston before settling in Nelson for inspiration. Earlier this year, Confined Space was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Crime Novel by the Crime Writers of Canada.

One Book, One Kootenay is a region-wide book club supported by public libraries in the East and West Kootenay, the Kootenay-Boundary area, and the Columbia Basin Trust.  Visit www.obok.ca to find out more about the program, a video interview with the Collier, as well as details of the upcoming the fifth annual OBOK.

Call the Cranbrook Public Library at 250-426-4063 to sign up for Deryn Collier’s reading on Thursday, October 24 at 7 p.m.  It promises to be a suspense-filled and entertaining evening.

Cranbrook Public Library

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