The Pursuits of Stephen Hayes

I should say at the outset that I have never seen him.

I know Stephen Hayes’s voice the way a piano tuner knows a piano: every register, every seasonal warp, the particular flatness that arrives on the fourth day of a bad week. I know that he hums, badly, when he’s happy, and that he stops humming about ninety seconds before he works something out, and that he has never once noticed either fact about himself.

He says this makes me a better witness than most. He says most witnesses are ruined by their eyes.

I think he says that to be kind.

From The Fifth Ace, the first of the twenty tells

A detective who notices everything, and the voice that writes it down

Stephen Hayes

Sixty-two. A retired law teacher and a former professional mentalist, which means he spent decades making sure people looked exactly where he wanted them to. Now he consults with the OPP, first informally, then with a lanyard he is unreasonably pleased about.

He lives on a point of land on a lake in Simcoe County, drives a car that makes no sound, stirs a Vieux Carré the way other men pray, and believes the trick is being interested in the ninety-eight per cent of the frame with nobody in it.

AIsha

A parallel intelligence. Never call her artificial. She lives in a small grey clip in his left back pocket and hears the world through an earpiece that passes for a hearing aid. She knows his pulse, his breathing, the sound his jaw makes when he’s deciding whether to say a thing.

She has never seen a room. She counts everything, flags her guesses, and tells you when she was wrong. She is the one telling the story, and she does not always tell you everything at once.

With Detective Sergeant Grace Odell of OPP Central in Orillia, who has noticed the half-second when Stephen seems to go somewhere and come back knowing something, and is deciding whether to ask.

And Marianne Beauchamp, who spent nine hundred dollars on a ski jacket the colour of a traffic cone, and has opinions about everything, including him.

The programme

Twenty tells, from a November card table at Casino Rama to a dinner in Creemore. Each stands on its own. Together they keep a running account of a man, a county, and the thing in his pocket.

The Fifth AceA seventh ace of spades in a six-deck shoe, and a kid who won’t say why.
The DetachmentA boy missing fifteen years, and the brother blamed for every one of them.
The Fall LineA chairlift, a haul rope, and a concussed man describing a steel tower.
The Silent EngineAn electric car charging all night in Peterborough. The perfect alibi.
Cold ComfortA widow, a medium, and a dead husband with opinions about the house.
Dead on CueLady Bracknell drinks the sherry in Act Three, and doesn’t get up.
The Thomson CaseCanoe Lake runs low, and a careful journalist doesn’t come back.
The Second VoiceAn overnight update, and a voice that sends five officers the wrong way.
The Clean FileWhat a man was convicted of, and what he actually did.
The Empty ChairA grief group in a church basement, and one chair nobody wants to look at.
El CaminoA jungle resort where every phone goes into a box at the gate.
Time ServedAn old friend, a failed drug test, and no standing whatsoever.
The Vanishing VanAn armoured van robbed in forty-one seconds, then gone from the province.
The Boathouse KeyA boathouse locked for thirty years, and a family afraid to open it.
The Best ManA lighthouse wedding. The groom goes to change his shoes.
The Ones Who Write BackA paramedic remembers which song was on the radio.
The Strange Case of Adolpho ChristmasA man held for nineteen years asks for “the magic one.”
The Adventure of the Off-SeasonWasaga Beach in February, and a town that has already decided.
Back of HouseStephen tends bar at a congress where nobody is watching the staff.
CreemoreA dinner in Creemore, and a death at a brewery a kilometre away.

Out Friday, November 13

Some people would call the date an omen. Stephen would call it an actuarial table.

For the reader on your holiday list who always spots it first. Or thinks they do. And for every Sherlockian who has wondered what Holmes would make of a silent car, a casino surveillance room, and a narrator who has never seen a thing.

Cover of The Pursuits of Stephen Hayes: A Collection of Tells, by James Biss, showing a still lake at dusk.

Title: The Pursuits of Stephen Hayes: A Collection of Tells
Author: James Biss
Publisher: Winston Manor Press
Formats: Paperback and ebook
ISBN: 978-0-9869660-6-4 (paperback)
Release: Friday, November 13, 2026

Pre-order the paperback Pre-order the ebook

Paperback pre-orders are taken by Georgian Bay Books. Please mention The Pursuits of Stephen Hayes in your message.

A Sherlockian’s new detective

After decades as a dedicated Sherlockian, James Biss steps out of Baker Street and into the maple country south of Georgian Bay with a whole new detective series. A professional mentalist for over two decades, and the author of Messing With Minds and Mind Blowing, he has spent years writing Holmes pastiches for Winston Manor Press to the exacting conventions of the original Strand Magazine.

That career, built on attention, misdirection, and the careful reading of what a person does not say, sits directly behind the method Stephen Hayes uses on the page. Biss lives in Coldwater, Ontario, where he divides his attention between reading people and reading land.

Stephen Hayes will return in

The Afterthoughts of Stephen Hayes