Jim Napier

After teaching crime fiction and creative writing for nearly twenty years, Jim Napier took early retirement so he could write full-time.

Jim’s reviews and interviews have appeared in the Sherbrooke Record, the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph, the Montreal Review of Books, and on such major crime fiction websites as The Rap Sheet, Spinetingler, Shots Magazine, Reviewing the Evidence, January magazine, Crime Time, and Type M for Murder, as well as on his own award- winning website, Deadly Diversions.

In addition to giving workshops on crime writing Jim has twice been a judge for the Arthur Ellis Awards given out by the Crime Writers of Canada, and also chaired the awards in 2009.  In 2011 he scripted a fundraising mystery play, and his article, “Putting Your Protagonist in Jeopardy,” was included in the anthology Now Write! Mysteries, published by Tarcher/Penguin the same year.

In 2012 Jim was commissioned to write the biographies for the crime fiction authors in the Canadian Encyclopedia.  He also gives public talks on crime writing, crime writers, and the publishing industry.   He is currently writing a police procedural series featuring DI Colin McDermott of the London Metropolitan Police. 

The father of two daughters (one a teacher, the other a state trooper), Jim has traveled extensively in Canada and the U.S., Britain, and Europe, and to a lesser extent in South America.  A prize-winning photographer, his landscapes have been exhibited in Canada and the U.S., and his urban landscapes can be found on the University of Washington's Cities and Buildings Database.

Jim and his wife Roya live in Canada with their irrepressible Welsh Terrier, Whisky.