Read an Excerpt from SELDOM SEEN ROAD, the First Title in the New Burnt River Mystery Series from John Degen

A murder on a riverbank pulls an unlikely detective out of retirement in Seldom Seen Road (Latitude 46),l the first instalment in John Degen’s Burnt River mystery series.

When the body of a local environmental activist is discovered in the spring runoff near the northern Ontario town of Burnt River, this terrible find sets a sprawling investigation in motion. At the centre is Mark Roth, a recently retired musician who is profoundly hard of hearing, grieving the loss of his wife, and entirely unwilling to mind his own business. Despite repeated warnings, he throws himself into the case, convinced that the official story leaves too many questions unanswered.

Mark is not working alone. His daughter Stephanie, a criminologist, and his cousin Jeremy, a local police constable, each bring their own skills to the investigation. Together, they uncover a web of secrets involving environmental politics, local business interests, drug trafficking, and a cast of residents with reasons to hide the truth. Seldom Seen Road combines small-town intrigue with a memorable family dynamic, introducing a detective trio whose strengths and frustrations are as compelling as the mystery itself.

We're very excited to share an excerpt from this new series, right here on Open Book!

An Excerpt from Seldom Seen Road by John Degen

Mark Roth sat in the cooling twilight air, bobbing gently above perpetually icy northern water, trying to keep cramps and spasms from overtaking his spine. His body, soft with age and inaction, tended toward a slump when seated. He kept a well-worn St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. A red flannel shirt and jeans. The cabin uniform, he called it. 

Mark twisted and stretched against the padded seat of the bass boat. Lake Huron’s northern channel lay still and flat before him, a vast stretch of ever so mildly rolling calm, dotted with islands. Behind him the north shore was ragged with inlets dotted with the lights of distant cabins. The town of Burnt River lay slightly to the east, and just off his right shoulder a line of industrial floodlights marked the restricted shoreline of a huge uranium refinery, built to process the ore pulled in from points north. Apparently, the small town housed the largest such facility in the world, though that was hardly a selling point when he and his wife moved there.

Evening advanced from the west, but the sky still held bright streaks of orange. Through fading light, Mark kept an eye on the red and white plastic float at the end of his fishing line. He watched it stay motionless while tiny silver fish—Great Lakes smelt—jumped all around it. They leapt for the black flies and the no-see-ums swarming just above the surface of the water. These fish were too small to bother with a hook and worm. 

And that’s just how he liked it. Despite the purpose-built boat, the gear, and his outfit, he wasn’t on the water to catch fish. He didn’t need more fish. While he would never turn down a dinner of perch or trout from the edges of Lake Huron, he certainly didn’t need to catch it himself. There was always the diner, or his own barbecue and a freezer full of steaks and hamburger patties. Foraging for wild foods was not a priority. 

Mark Roth sat rocking on the lake for other reasons. Better reasons. Watching the smelt dance in the dying sunlight. Feeling the growing warmth from the south on his face. Listening to a distant ball game. These were more than enough for him, because they took him away from an empty cabin that should not be empty.

The smelt had learned from experience not to venture close to shore. In the shallows there were lights, and wherever there was light in the darkness, there were nets. The shore lights drew little fish in swarms, and by the time they suspected a trap, they were in buckets, heading down the highway, bound for the Greek and Portuguese restaurants in Toronto. Generations of sparkling, young fish had met their end on expensive plates on Danforth Avenue or College Street, hundreds of kilometres from where they’d last tasted freedom. So, these particular smelt had wised up, and stayed out in the deeps. Or that’s how Mark imagined it. 

This was ritual—this fishing but not catching anything. Over many years, it was now the hoped-for outcome for the first days of vacation. It was how he spent so many early summer evenings for the past decade at least—watching the unmoving float against a late spring sky, and hoping it wouldn’t move. 

Except, this was no longer vacation. 

He shook his head and drew in a long, cool breath of lake air. Directly south stretched the dark form of Manitoulin Island, its western end defining Huron’s north channel, making the lake seem calmer than it really was—smaller, less of a killer. The dim lights of homes and cottages on Manitoulin’s north shore winked at him. He’d always meant to get over there, had heard so much about the beautiful, rugged landscape and the views of the main lake. Somehow, he and Sara had never managed the trip. 

They sometimes talked on their long drives north about making a quick left at Espanola, crossing the famous swing bridge and finding a motel room from which to explore the island, but by that point in the day the pull of their own place was too immediate and strong. They would arrive in Burnt River, break out the cribbage board, and never leave their own lot. Mark’s occasional evenings on the water, with his radio and his lack of fish, were the only exceptions. 

Nowadays, it didn’t matter what he did in Burnt River. He lived a solitary life there—a widower now almost a year. A further nine hours up the highway, in Thunder Bay, his daughter Stephanie taught at the university. A criminalist, she was beginning to make a name for herself in rarified academic circles. It was comforting to know she shared his north-ness, but nine hours was nine hours. He was, by every measure, alone.

Whether he went to dinner at the local diner, spent the evening drinking whiskey and watching ball, or went fishing, in the end he would always be thinking about Sara. It was the way of the widowed, he figured. Sara had accompanied him fishing exactly once, was horrified by his treatment of the worms, and terminally bored by the complete lack of fish. Sara joked that Mark could actually be doing anything—gambling, having an affair, running a drug business—as long as he told her he was fishing. She’d never find out, because she’d never again agree to sit in a boat with him. 

“And now, you come with me every time I fish. Whether you like it or not.” 

On this night, the Toronto Blue Jays were playing the Cleveland Indians, in Cleveland. The ballpark was almost 700 kilometres south-southeast of where he sat. Two great lakes and a narrow finger of southern Ontario farmland away. Years ago, this would have been a perfect night to pick up the Cleveland station on his portable AM/FM set, especially if a light cloud cover kept the radio waves bouncing between lake and ceiling all the way up Huron. Away games from Cleveland were always clear on the water, more so even than those from Detroit, a city that was geographically closer to Burnt River, but whose radio signals had to traverse a much more crowded section of air. 

These days, Mark didn’t have to think at all about signal strength, or the quality of the sky. He could pick up any game he liked on his cell phone, and the Bluetooth hook-up with his hearing aid meant the game was broadcast directly into his brain through the small clear plastic tubes in his ears. He’d depended on hearing aids most of his adult life, but only recently had the technology reached a point where Mark could truly enjoy audio baseball again. All that would have been nice, revolutionary even, if he could care about it. Without Sara, it was hard to find anything to really care about.

Mark pictured each pitch as it was called, trying to imagine details and elements undescribed in the play-by-play. Families in the stands, enjoying hot dogs. Seagulls circling, on the hunt for dropped french fries. In this way, he made it through the bottom of the eighth inning, and only then noticed the light gone completely from the southern sky. 

He could no longer see the motionless red and white float at the end of his line. The water was black and smooth. Shore lights twinkled on Manitoulin and the running lights of a distant Laker seemed a bit too close. It was time to go in. He stowed his rod, and hauled the anchor aboard. He flicked on the running lights and pressed the ignition. How many dreaming fishermen had been plowed under by the giants of the water because they’d forgot to put their lights on? Mark shifted in his seat, pivoting it around on its swivel so he could see the near shore and the lights of town. 

Hello trouble. 

The mainland was a carnival of emergency vehicle lights, swirling and pulsating at different speeds and frequencies. Blue, red, yellow, white. They were clustered at the mouth of the river, very near where Mark had rented the boat four hours earlier. He counted eleven vehicles—police cars, fire trucks and ambulances, with more on the way behind them, screaming along on the Trans-Canada highway. Whatever happened, it was bad enough to bring out every bored emergency responder in the district. Mark switched off the game to bring the real world back into auditory focus. Siren yelps bounced across the water, distant but unmistakable. He’d been hearing these noises mixed in with the ballgame for the last inning or so, but thought nothing of them. These were city noises, something he’d hear all the time in a place like Cleveland. He couldn’t remember ever hearing a siren in Burnt River before. The whoop of a police cruiser pulling someone over on Highway 17, sure, but never a full-on siren. 

With that many of them, Jeremy is bound to be there. 

He pushed the throttle forward and leaned into the increasing speed. His cousin Jeremy worked the highway as a provincial patrolman. Whatever was happening on shore was clearly an emergency. But it was also a chance for a little company. Mark took the opportunity of no witnesses to chuckle grimly to himself.

The angel of death needs a drinking buddy.

Mark pulled the boat into the numbered slip at the marina. He packed out his gear, and dropped the engine key on the counter in the office. Madeleine Colby, the owner of the marina, barely acknowledged him as she passed the receipt across. A short, round woman in her early sixties, Madeleine was a lifer. 

“Born in Burnt River, will die in Burnt River. But not before I’m good and ready.” 

Normally, Madeleine would have done a full inspection of the boat, checking for nicks and scrapes along the waterline before letting Mark off the hook, but the spinning lights had turned her head completely. 

“They got a floater,” 

Madeleine nodded her chin toward the near bank of the river where the main concentration of cops and medics had gathered. 

“Kid spotted it from the deck of the diner. Screamed like someone had jammed a fork into his ass cheek.” 

“Someone fell in and drowned, right in front of everyone?” 

Mark always made sure he had a lifejacket with him when he fished, but he never actually wore it. 

“No witnesses. Looks like the body was there for a while. Caught up in that dead tree. Musta been laying in the lee of the bank there, and no-one noticed until the sun got low and took away the shadow.” 

Mark scanned the faces by the bank. 

“No Jeremy?” 

“You’re looking in the wrong place. Damn if he wasn’t the first one on the scene. He climbed right into the water as soon as he got here. Still down there with whoever that is. That’s some tough family you got there, Roth. Water’s no more than fifteen degrees I’ll bet, and it can’t be any fun hanging onto that fish food. ’Specially not the shape he’s in.” 

“You saw the body?” 

“People start pointing and yelling like crazy and I’m not going to take a look? Of course, I saw the body.” 

“Well, who is it?” 

Madeleine stared at the boat key in her hand for a good five seconds. She yanked open a drawer behind the counter and pulled out a bottle. It hit the counter like a rock, followed by two heavy glasses. She poured three fingers for herself and Mark. Only after she emptied her drink did she meet Mark’s stare. 

“I don’t know who it is,” she said, her voice not quite steady enough. “I think I may know the clothing, but there’s not enough of a face that I could see.” 

Mark downed his own whiskey, and Madeleine poured two more. She curled her top lip and shook her head like she’d just eaten something rotten. 

“Lampreys got to him. Goddamn bloodsuckers all over his bloated face. Probably been eatin’ at him most of the day.” 

John Degen,  Seldom Seen Road. Copyright © 2026 John Degen. Used with the permission of Latitude 46 Publishing (www.latitude46publishing.com)

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John Degen is a poet and novelist with three published books. He holds a Master’s degree in Literature from the University of Toronto. His debut novel, The Uninvited Guest, was shortlisted for the 2006 Amazon.ca First Novel Award. His essays and opinions have been published widely throughout Canada, including in The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Quill & Quire, and the Literary Review of Canada. Degen has worked on behalf of other authors for the past thirty years. He is Chief Executive Officer of The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC). He lives and works, happily, in Thessalon, Ontario, with occasional reluctant visits to Toronto and Ottawa.