Night shift with the bicycle cops
An interview with Don Gillmor, author of Cherry Beach
Don Gillmor’s latest book—a layered literary crime thriller called Cherry Beach—comes out next Tuesday and has already been leading our Canadian sales for the past couple of weeks. It recently made the CIBA Booksellers’ List—a list of favourite spring releases voted on by indie Canadian booksellers. It’s always extra special when indie bookstores vote for books by indie presses, and honestly kind of annoying when they don’t. (6/20 of the books on this spring list are indie, but who’s counting?)
Cherry Beach is one of those novels that succeeds at being for all kinds of readers. Gillmor, who’s written on a wide range of topics over the course of his career—as a journalist, as well as a novelist—knows how to fill a story with the tidbits of information that make up the substance of real life. I learned some Toronto geography; I also learned how to make a nice jalapeño marinade for my pork tenderloin. On the one hand, this is a propulsive, gripping detective story. On the other, Cherry Beach has the qualities I love of a plotless literary novel, including the interiority of a lonely, slightly-delusional protagonist I can relate to.
Readers have been comparing Cherry Beach to The Wire for the ways it characterizes a city (Toronto in this case, instead of Baltimore), and the ways it balances racial and economic tensions while gradually revealing a complex, shadowy network of crime. But it’s also interesting to me that a 263-page book could even be comparable to a show that takes approximately 60 hours to watch. Yet it is. Gillmor doesn’t waste space, and I’m still thinking through some of the book’s connections, as the intensifying summer heat of the novel seeps into the hours spent away from it.
I had the pleasure of sending Don Gillmor a handful of questions about Cherry Beach, which he graciously answers below.
Dominique,
Publicity & Marketing Coordinator
A Biblioasis Interview with Don Gillmor
Author of Cherry Beach (April 14, 2026)
You’ve written many kinds of books (literary novels, a memoir, books for children, a field note about oil, a fictionalized history of Canada). What made you want to write a crime novel?
I’ve always wanted to write a detective novel. In university, I began reading some of the classic detective novels from the 1930s, 40s and 50s—Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Chester Hines. It was partly a relief from Eighteenth Century British Literature courses. At the time I thought it would be interesting to write one. It took me a while to get around to it.
How much of Cherry Beach is based on true events and real people?
There are parts of the novel that are informed by, if not based on, real events or people. Years ago, when I was doing a lot of journalism, I wrote an article for Toronto Life on 51 Division, which was then sometimes called the Punishment Station because bad cops from other divisions were sent there. At the time, they were also experimenting with community policing—mostly young cops on bicycles engaging with the community. So there was a clash of cultures—two very different views on policing. To a degree, I revived that idea in Cherry Beach. I went out on the night shift with the bicycle cops and there are a few scenes that are taken from that experience, including the opening conversation with the sex worker. I also went out in police cars with the hardcore cops in the division. An interesting perspective.
I wrote a magazine article that took me to Kingston, Jamaica, looking for a suspected murderer (I didn’t find him), but the trip into the red hills and the conversation with the Justice Minister are based on my own experience there.
And Torontonians may recognize aspects of a former mayor.
In Cherry Beach, Toronto is essentially the main character, and we witness its character development throughout the book. How was writing the character of Toronto different from writing a human character (or was it the same)?
I wanted the city to be a large part of the book. In part because it’s a complex place, claiming to be the most multicultural city in the world. So we’re sort of a global experiment. In many ways, we’re a grand success. But there remains a lot of work to be done. There are issues of affordability and racism, and our traffic is amongst the worst in North America.
As a reader, I always enjoy seeing cities from a literary perspective, whether it’s Dennis Lehane’s Southie neighbourhood in Boston, or Elmore Leonard’s Detroit, or the Venice of Donna Leon. So I wanted to look at Toronto from the perspective of its extremes—the privileged and the underclass. There was a time when the richest and poorest neighbourhoods (Rosedale and Regent Park respectively) were essentially adjacent to one another, though the area has since gone through major changes.
Detective Jamieson Abel is a great cook, and this book is full of wonderful recipes. I’m interested to know more about your decision to include this aspect of his character.
It’s mostly an extension of my own interest in cooking. I learned to cook as a matter of survival—a series of girlfriends with many wonderful qualities, but no interest whatsoever in cooking. So I started to learn. Cooking opens up a world. I think it’s one of the reasons for the success of cooking shows; they form a kind of community and bridge cultures. Abel is quite isolated—a single, middle-aged man who has alienated much of the department he works for. Cooking is a way for him to engage with the world.
What were some of your influences for Cherry Beach, literary or otherwise?
There are two different directions as far as influences go. On the one hand, Jamieson Abel is (sort of) in the tradition of what were once called hard boiled detectives—Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer, Chandler’s Philip Marlowe et al. But there is also a tradition of literary novelists like Kate Atkinson, John Banville, and Michael Redhill, who all write detective novels as well. I understand the appeal of crime fiction for literary novelists, but it presents certain challenges as well. As a rule, literary novelists don’t have to concern themselves with plot. But with crime fiction, you need plot, and it has given me a fresh appreciation for those writers who do it well.
In good publicity news:
- Cherry Beach by Don Gillmor has been included in the CIBA Spring 2026 Booksellers List: “If the dayglo film-filtered cover of an aging high rise on a summer day doesn’t intrigue you, maybe a comparison to The Wire but ‘make it Toronto’ will do the trick. Cherry Beach is a propulsive genre mash-up of Canadian crime and literary fiction.” (Robyn York, Beach Reads Bookshop)
- On Sports by David Macfarlane was featured in The Tyee: “A showcase of [Macfarlane’s] breezy control over the nuts and bolts of professional and amateur athletics, their cultural import as well as the rhythms (and seasons) of sports writing.”
- Every Time We Say Goodbye by Ivana Sajko (trans. Mima Simić) was reviewed in On the Seawall: “Mima Simić translates all of this with clarity and verve . . . alternately riveting and heartbreaking.” The book was also featured in Electric Lit’s list of 15 Must-Read Small Press Books of Spring 2026: “Every sentence sings with emotional resonance and is imbued with the protagonist’s regret . . . a master class in both economy of language and expansiveness of feeling.”
- Decadence by Richard Kelly Kemick was reviewed in Publishers Weekly: “Kemick’s wit and curmudgeonly self-regard is offset by his palpable adoration of his partner, Litia, evoking the work of David Sedaris. It’s a weird and rewarding ride.”
