Grant Tracey

Grant Tracey is the author of the Hayden Fuller Mystery series, as well as many other crime noir and literary stories. He teaches film and creative writing at University of Northern Iowa and is a long-serving editor of North American Review. His Hayden Fuller novels are Cheap Amusements, A Fourth Face, and Neon Kiss, which is available in the collection Five Hard Bites along with the novella Day of the Dragons and the short story “Shot, Reverse Shot.”

Grant’s detective fiction has also been published in Groovy Gumshoes, Tough, Magpie Lit, Twelve Winters Journal, and Bang!. The chapbook Winsome/Bend of the Sun was published by Final Thursday Press. Moreover, Twelve Winters brought out Final Stanzas, a collection of literary short stories; and Toronto, 1965: Cheap Amusements’ Beat, a memoir.

In addition to writing, teaching and editing, Grant is active in community theater as both an actor and director. Having grown up in Toronto, Grant is an avid Maple Leafs fan.

The Hayden Fuller Mystery Novels

Cheap Amusements

Ninety-three days ago a girl went missing, only to be found in a suitcase, two bullets behind her right ear. Hayden Fuller worked that case and now he’s working another that’s eerily similar: a missing young woman, no ransom note, and clues pointing to a high school guidance counselor. Fuller, an ex-hockey player drummed out of the NHL for taking salacious pix of a cheating husband (and teammate), now finds himself slipping back into Maple Leaf Gardens and clashing with a demimonde of corrupt CEOs, gangsters, prostitutes, and porn. With the help of a maverick reporter, tough guy Fuller navigates a host of double crosses and betrayals. But will he find the girl in time? 94, 95, 96 days and counting … “A fun thriller, and thrilling fun,” says Thomas Fox Averill, author of A Carol Dickens Christmas. Available in cloth (temporarily unavailable), paperback and Kindle editions.

A Fourth Face

Former NHL teammate Bobby Ehle hires Hayden Fuller to investigate the brutal murder of his ex-wife. Chances are Ehle, who has a history of domestic violence, may have done it. Fuller’s investigation drops him into a world of domestic terrorism (a revolutionary group, N’oublie jamais, plans to ruin Expo 67), psychedelic drugs (Blue 27 and Red 45) that can drastically change people’s personalities, and faux doctors with their hydrotherapy treatments and plastic surgery services. His quest takes an inner turn as Fuller confronts his own personal trauma and troubled past. On top of all this he reconnects with ex, Stana Younger. Together, can they solve one murder and prevent several more? A Fourth Face is a follow up to the debut Hayden Fuller Mystery, Cheap Amusements. Available in cloth (temporarily unavailable), paperback and Kindle editions.

Five Hard Bites

In these five hard-bitten tales, PI Hayden Fuller searches for a missing girl while tangling with a sex ring; mixes it up with N’oublie jamais, while dealing with a domestic abuse case; investigates his father’s murder and tumbles onto a cult and a leader who wants to “dismantle the universe”; dukes it out with Nazis in Bannerville, Pop 1201, and their “triumph of redemption” featuring mechanical dragons; and stumbles through a demi-monde of underground filmmakers while busting up a sex trafficking ring. Fuller, with his fists and snub-nosed .38, unpacks a host of lies as each narrative builds to a shock ending. His is a pyrrhic journey, for in the dark, Fuller finds something more than night. The collection includes three complete novels–Cheap Amusements, A Fourth Face, and Neon Kiss–as well as the novella Day of the Dragons and the short story “Shot, Reverse Shot,” plus a Hayden Fuller Timeline. Available in a paperback edition.

Also by Grant Tracey from Twelve Winters

Final Stanzas

In these eleven short stories by a true master of the form, Grant Tracey guides us across a wide expanse of time and place but always deep into the interior lives of the characters we encounter. From 1918 New York to 1971 Toronto to contemporary Cedar Falls, Iowa – instantly we become involved in the complex relationships of movie actors, college professors, school custodians, teenagers, housewives – always firmly and richly enmeshed in their cultures via copious allusions to history, literature, cinema, TV, and the slang that punctuates their spot-on dialogue. Final Stanzas is a tour de force by a writer who is always mindful of his craft and attentive to the minutest of details. Available in paperback, Kindle and audiobook editions.

Toronto, 1965: Cheap Amusements’ Beat

In this touching and amusing memoir, author Grant Tracey reflects on growing up in Toronto in the 1960s, his love affair with hockey and hardboiled detective novels, and the genesis of his detective protagonist Hayden Fuller. “Hockey is part of the city’s infrastructure and immigrant fabric,” writes Grant, “and Toronto is a city of immigrants.” To date, Grant’s Hayden Fuller Mysteries include the novels Cheap Amusements, A Fourth Face, and Neon Kiss, as well as other novellas and short stories. Available in a Kindle edition.

Other Grant Tracey Detective Fiction
Available Online

“The Salinger Files” (in Twelve Winters Journal Volume I)
“The Final Portrait” (in Twelve Winters Journal Volume II)
“The Gray Hearse” (in Magpie Lit, Issue #19, see pages 34-42)

Interviews with Grant Tracey

On the Release of Five Hard Bites
Editor Interview / Grant Tracey
On the Release of A Fourth Face
On the Release of Cheap Amusements
On the Release of Final Stanzas

Grant Tracey Videos

Grant Tracey Reading in Albuquerque, NM
Grant Tracey Reading from Five Hard Bites
Book Trailer for Cheap Amusements
Book Trailer for Final Stanzas

Craft Essays by Grant Tracey

“Finding Room to Swing in Ed Lacy’s Crime Fiction”
“John D. MacDonald’s The Executioners and and the Melodramatic Imagination”
“Ed McBain’s King’s Ransom and Staging in Triangles”
“Crime Sensibility: The Art of Raymond Chandler”

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