Maggie Wheeler Books In Order

Publication Order of Lost Villages Mysteries Books

Maggie Wheeler is an accomplished published author.

She is known as the Queen of Crime of the Seaway Valley. She has worked for over two decades to try and show the impact that the St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project had psychologically, culturally and socially on Canadians.

Maggie is known for writing the Lost Villages series, a series of historical murder mystery novels. The series has been nominated for an Award for the Arts from Ontario Premier, an Ontario Provincial Hansard, and a People’s Choice Seeker’s Award for Literary Artist of the Year in 2013 and then again in 2018.

The series did very well and became a best seller in Eastern Ontario. The first four books have been used there and in upstate New York to teach English and History to fifth graders to post-secondary students.

Maggie has been busy doing public speaking and has been in the media often thanks to the work she has done with the Seaway history. Maggie has been actively involved in this discourse since 2001 and has been making media appearances on academic, national, regional and local levels.

She has contributed a “Lost Villages” article for The Canadian Encyclopedia by Historica Canada, which is an official and national online resource for a variety of subjects that have to do with Canada. The author has been steadily writing her Farran Mackenzie Lost Villages series since 2001, and released the fifth novel in the series in 2017. All My Worldly Goods was also composed with the help of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Maggie was picked as Ottawa’s Favorite Author in 2017 by FACES Magazine. In 2018 she was picked for the Seeker’s Choice Award for Literary Artist.

A Violent End is the first novel in the Farran Mackenzie Lost Villages series by Maggie Wheeler. This book first came out in 2001 and readers have been enjoying the series ever since! Pick up a copy for yourself and dive into all of the fun for yourself, or read our summary first to see whether you may be interested in the plot!

Main character Farran Mackenzie is a history professor at a university. When her mother passes away, she is struck by a wave of grief. But somewhere among all of her feelings, Farran is struck by an idea and starts looking into her parents’ past.

Farran decides that she is going to go to St. Lawrence Seaway and physically explore the Lost Villages and her parents’ history. She packs up and heads out, but showing up is something of a surprise to the people of the village that have been there for some time. It even begins stirring up some memories among the past villagers, who have already been shocked enough by Farran’s father reappearing out of nowhere.

Unfortunately, the appearance of her father is that of his body. He had been buried somewhere where now the waters of St. Lawrence covered and had been there since four decades previous. Eventually it had dislodged from its resting place deep below and floated up.

Farran also has to contend with another death when one of her parents’ friends dies in a weird accident. It happens just shortly before she arrives, so she’s intrigued and even faintly wonders whether it could be connected to her parents or her own situation in some way.

Farran decides that she’s going to start researching things and find out some answers. She even suspects that her father has been murdered. If this ends up being true, and her father’s killer is still out there, she risks them finding her before she finds them. Can the amateur sleuth track down the answers she needs, or will she end up wishing that she had never set out looking for them in the first place? Read the intriguing first novel in the Farran Mackenzie Lost Villages series to find out!

The Brother of Sleep is the second novel in the Farran Mackenzie Lost Villages series by Maggie Wheeler. This book was first released for readers to enjoy in 2004. It continues the adventures of Farran Mackenzie from the debut, so check it out and see what you think!

Main character Farran Mackenzie is back. When she’s sitting in her office at the University of Waterloo, the last person that she expected to walk through the door was Alison Perry. They had been best friends back in high school, and that was three decades back. That was also when her father had been killed while actively working as a police officer.

Now Alison has to come to her all of these years later to inquire whether Farran can help her figure out who killed her dad. Farran wants to take the case, but also has doubts about helping her. It’s been some time, but Alison left her life without give her so much as an explanation. It was like one moment they were so close, and the next, there was just nothing.

Things quickly change when a car bomb goes off and kills Sergeant Perry’s former partner while almost taking Farran and Alison out too. They’ve gone looking for information, but someone out there clearly wants them to stop looking for those skeletons.

Farran decides the only place to go is to the St. Lawrence Seaway, where she thinks they’ll be safer. However, upon getting there, it doesn’t take too long for trouble to find them. When Farran meets up with Paul Vaughn in a cemetery through chance, the Newfoundland police officer ends up inspiring her to go back and look into the St. Lawrence Seaway’s origins.

It was that same path that ended up putting her into total chaos last time, and it could happen this time too. Meanwhile, Farran seems to feel some type of pull to Paul, who seems to have had a similar life to hers. She can’t help but think about the OPP inspector Jerry Strauss, a man who she owed a lot too.

With policemen coming into her life from the past and the present, and a case to solve, Farran doesn’t know what to think. She has to figure out who she trusts and whether she’s ready to know the truth. Can she pull things together and find Alison’s father’s killer before it’s too late? Read this mystery to find out!