Press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Toronto, October 27, 2022)

HarperCollins Canada is thrilled to have acquired on exclusive submission World, all language rights to a new comedic, cozy mystery series by the award-winning, bestselling author duo of Will Ferguson and Ian Ferguson.

The first novel, titled I Only Read Murder, will launch the series in June 2023. It introduces Miranda Abbott, a former TV star who feels compelled to revisit the detective skills of her character Pastor Fran when a murder occurs on-stage during a small-town theatre performance. The second Miranda Abbott novel, Mystery in the Title, will follow in early 2024.

Jennifer Lambert, HarperCollins Canada Editor-in-Chief, acquired the books, stating, “I was immediately taken by this light-hearted, funny and infinitely clever series by such renowned writers and humorists as Will and Ian Ferguson. I Only Read Murder has just the right touch of a send up of actors past their prime and small-town theatre, while also incorporating the twisty whodunnit clues and humour of favourite TV shows Shakespeare & Hathaway and Only Murders in the Building with a dash of Moira Rose from Schitt’s Creek.”

Ian and Will Ferguson say, “We’re incredibly pleased to be launching the Miranda Abbott series with HarperCollins. They’ve been great. They understand the humour and the affectionate homage behind these novels. In many ways, this series is a love letter to the shows we grew up with, from Magnum P.I. to Murder, She Wrote. We’ve been having a lot of fun writing these, and we’re sure readers will have a lot of fun reading them.”

The book deal was arranged by the authors.

Will Ferguson is an award-winning travel writer, popular historian and novelist. His novels include his debut HappinessTM, sold in 23 languages, and 419, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His most recent novel, The Finder, won the 2021 Arthur Ellis Award for Crime Fiction. Ferguson has won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour three times and has been nominated for both the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. He is the author with Ian Ferguson of the bestseller How to Be a Canadian. He lives in Calgary, AB.

Ian Ferguson won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour for Village of the Small Houses and is the co-author, with his brother Will Ferguson, of How to Be a Canadian, which was shortlisted for the Leacock Medal and which won the CBA Libris Award for non-fiction. He is a contributor to the Penguin Anthology of Canadian Humour and has been published in the Globe and Mail, National Post, Reader’s Digest, Maclean’s and EnRoute, among other publications. For the past ten years, he has worked as a writer and creative director in the film and television industry. He was actively involved in theater and live comedy and is the founder of the long-running Sin City variety show, a comedic free-for-all in the vaudeville tradition. He lives in Victoria, BC.