"The Man Who Killed is a terrific noir novel...Nixon, a former actor, painter, salesman and electrician, has a great eye for period detail and a solid grasp of the nuances of noir. This is a great weekend escape novel." -- Globe & Mail

"Fraser Nixon's debut novel is a fast, sharp piece of work...in the subtlty of Nixon's examination of the consequences of violence, the meticulousness of the plot, and the beauty of the language The Man Who Killed is as literary as anything out there." -- The Millions

A rye-soaked neo-noir novel about a small-time crook on a crime spree through Prohibition era Montreal.

Montreal, 1926. Mick is down on his luck until an old pal offers him a loaded revolver and a job as a bootlegger riding shotgun in a truck running booze across the border. Stateside Prohibition has opened up a market for certain amusements, vicious or otherwise. Mick takes the job -- and his problems begin.

Through his old friend Jack, Mick falls deeper into the life of the two-bit hood. From whorehouse to gentlemen's club, through back alleys and deluxe hotels, jazz joints, opium dens, baseball diamonds, cheap diners and anywhere trouble is to be found, Mick burns his way through the City of Two Solitudes. Other people are in town for their own reasons. Babe Ruth's here; Harry Houdini, too.

The Man Who Killed is a tale of political corruption and crime, of sexual jealousy and heartbreak, a portrait of a city after last call, of smoke-filled saloons, vaudeville shows, and gunfire in the night. Shot through with dark humour and strange pathos, this is a novel of two friends who do bad things mostly for money, sometimes for fun.