Is this hell, or just a psychiatric hospital? Dr. Robert Snow isn't sure. Waking from a drunken stupor in a small green room, the doctor finds he's on the other side of the diagnosis - in a place where life and mental health seem to be going pretty cheap these days. Murder and sexual abuse haunt the hospital, but Snow doesn't really care. He'd rather be dead anyway. When a charming, manic cowboy and a world-weary intellectual invade Snow's self-imposed isolation, they drag him out of his depression - and into the heart of Essondale's black mysteries...
In a review of "Essondale", Quill and Quire stated that "Dawson's greatest strength is that he makes no judgements - not of the patients, not of the doctors, not of Essondale itself".
Publishers Weekly said of his mystery "Last Rights" that "Dawson's vital characters and the ambience of his city and institutional scenes earn him respect as the author of both a superb mystery and a compelling novel."
Of his mystery, "Slide in All Direction" also published by Bridgeross, the Hamilton Spectator said that it is "a work of fiction that's as close to reality as it gets". it is full of "compelling characters (who) find their way through a storyline bursting with crime, murder, addiction, tough love and tenuous redemption. Yet it doesn't feel crowded. You may not root for the characters but I'm betting you'll end up pulling for them".
Dawson is a member of the Crime Writers Association of Canada. Bridgeross Communications publishes three of his works - Essondale, Slide in All Direction and The Intern. All are $19.95 US.
For further information about Dawson and/or Bridgeross, please visit http://www.bridgeross.com
