Authors

Festival Authors

Announcing the authors for Montréal Mystery / Montréal Mystère 2026!

Guest of Honour: To Be Announced

Faye Arcand
Chloé Archambault
Jean Brassard
Helen Faradji
Alex Finlay
Eric Forbes
Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau

Catherine Mack
Bianca Marais
Guillaume Morrissette
Ashley Winstead
Olivia Worley
More to come!

Presenting in English

Faye Arcand
Faye Arcand is an award-winning author who embraces the gritty reality in characters and situations. She writes contemporary domestic suspense and thrillers. Arcand worked for several years within the Canadian criminal justice system, witnessing and experiencing what most do not. As an author, Arcand doesn’t question the motivation or direction of her muse, she just knows everyone has a story worth telling. While not writing or eavesdropping, she enjoys a purring cat, quality chocolate and ‘reality’ television. Arcand lives somewhere in the wilds of British Columbia.

Jean Brassard
Recipient of an Earphones Award and included on Audiofiles magazine's "Best of 2024" list for his narration of Louise Penny's novel The Grey Wolf, Jean has read over 80 audiobooks in English and French, including the 2018 Prix Goncourt winner And Their Children After Them by Nicolas Mathieu, Emmanuel Macron's Revolution, thrillers by James Paterson, Eric Dupont's international saga The American Fiancée, and the gothic novel The Werewolf of Paris.

On screen, he can be seen in Paul Schrader's film Oh, Canada, Ari Selinger's On the End, and soon in the series The Artist on The Network. Jean has also appeared in several HBO television series, such as The Staircase and John Adams; CBS's MacGyver; NBC's The Blacklist; and many more. The New York Times praised his stage presence in Manhattan, among other places, for his performance as the Ambassador in the play Film Chinois at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre and Theater Pizzaz for The Lears.

He was honored with the Bistro and Aggie awards from the New York cabaret scene for Le gamin de Paris – Jean Brassard chante Montand, with whom he toured the United States, Canada, and Europe. He is, of course, very well known in the wrestling world for his commentary on WWE alongside his colleague Raymond Rougeau.

Photo: Kristina Sherk

Alex Finlay
Alex Finlay is the bestselling author of several acclaimed novels, including the 2025
instant national bestseller, Parents Weekend. Alex’s novels are regularly on best of the
year lists and have been translated into twenty-five languages and sold around the
world. All of Alex’s books have been optioned or in development for film and television,
including Parents Weekend, which Hollywood recently scooped up for adaption to the
screen. His next novel, The Anniversary, arrives in stores on May 12, 2026. Alex lives in Washington, DC.

Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau
Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau is a bilingual French author based in the U.S. She has previously published novels and nonfiction books for teens, which have been translated into over twelve languages. The French Honeymoon is her debut adult novel. After graduating university in France, she moved to Amsterdam to begin a career in advertising. She then spent a few years in Melbourne before settling in New York City, where she lives with her French-Australian-American family, two gorgeous cats, and a whole lot of passports. Find her on social media @asjouhanneau.

Photo: Fany Ducharme

Catherine Mack
CATHERINE MACK (she/her) is the pseudonym for the USA Today and Globe & Mail bestselling author Catherine McKenzie. Her books are approaching two million copies sold worldwide and have been translated into multiple languages. Television rights to Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies and its sequels sold in a major auction to Fox TV for development into a series. A dual Canadian and US citizen, she splits her time between Canada and various warmer locations in the United States.

Bianca Marais
Bianca Marais is a USA Today bestselling author who cohosts the popular podcast The Shit No One Tells You About Writing which is aimed at helping emerging writers get published. She teaches creative writing through the podcast and was named a winner of the Excellence in Teaching Award for Creative Writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. She lives in Toronto, where she loves playing escape-room games and writing about strong female protagonists.

Photo: Luis Noble

Ashley Winstead
Ashley Winstead is the national bestselling author of This Book Will Bury Me, Midnight is the Darkest Hour, The Last Housewife, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife, The Boyfriend Candidate, and Fool Me Once. Her books have been Library Read picks, Loan Star picks, Best of Amazon picks, Best of Apple Books picks, and have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage, and Library Journal.

Her work has been covered by New York Times, Washington Post, CrimeReads, Parade, Cosmopolitan, Good Morning America, Good Housekeeping, Seattle Times, and Southern Review of Fiction, among others. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages worldwide and optioned for television. Ashley holds a Ph.D. in contemporary American literature and lives in Houston.

Olivia Worley
Olivia Worley is an author born and raised in New Orleans. A graduate of Northwestern University, she now lives in New York City, where she spends her time writing thrillers, over-analyzing episodes of The Bachelor, and hoping someone will romanticize her for reading on the subway. She is the author of SO HAPPY TOGETHER, and her next thriller, MAN OF MY DREAMS, will be published by Minotaur Books in June 2026. Her young adult thrillers include PEOPLE TO FOLLOW, THE DEBUTANTES, and FINAL CUT.

Presenting in French

Photo: Julia Marois

Chloé Archambault
Montrealer CHLOÉ ARCHAMBAULT is passionate about reading and writing. She studied English literature and art history at McGill University, then went on to law school. In 1995, she sold a script for a short film and disappeared into the legal world. She left it twenty-five years later and returned to writing. Francophone but perfectly bilingual, Chloé writes, in French and English, spy stories where the visual is omnipresent, the preponderance of the image being a distinctive facet of her writing style. Her novels are, to date, largely set in Montreal. Her novel Alias Nina P. earned her the Jacques-Mayer Prize for Best First Crime Novel: Saint-Pacôme Crime Writers’ Society, 2025. Her next novel, L’atout, will be published in 2026.

Photo: Julia Marois

Helen Faradji
Born in Strasbourg, Helen Faradji has lived in Quebec since 1999. She is a film critic and columnist, notably for Radio-Canada. She is also the programming director of the Quebec City Film Festival. La Corde blanche (The White Rope) is her first novel.

Photo: Charlie Marois

Eric Forbes
Éric Forbes grew up in the town of Amqui, Quebec and now lives in Montreal. For his book Amqui, he received the Jacques Mayer Award for Best First Crime Fiction. Le fugitif, le flic et Bill Ballantine (The Fugitive, the Cop, and Bill Ballantine) is his second novel.

Guillaume Morrissette
Guillaume Morrissette, born in Hull, Quebec, on October 2, 1975, is a Canadian polymath from the province of Quebec and author of critically acclaimed crime novels. In addition to being a musician, screenwriter, lecturer, consultant, entrepreneur, and teacher, he actively advocates for the acceptance of giftedness in children.