Eric Wright: R.I.P.

Eric Wright, Canadian Crime Writer, died on October 9 at the age of 86. Eric Wright was born in England but immigrated to Canada as a young man and settled in Toronto. For a number of years he taught English literature, and he wrote for television and magazines.

Eric Wright is known for his Inspector Charlie Salter detective novels. The first, The Night the Gods Smiled, won the John Creasey Award, the Arthur Ellis Award, and the City of Toronto Book Award. His third Charlie Salter Novel, Death in the Old Country, won the Arthur Ellis Award. The Joe Barley Mystery The Kidnapping of Rosie Dawn also received the Arthur Ellis Award and the Barry Award and was nominated for an Edgar. In 1998, Eric received the Derrick Murdoch Award for lifetime contributions to Canadian crime writing. He was a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada.

Besides the Inspector Charlie Salter Mystery series, Wright wrote the Lucy Trimble Brenner Mysteries, the Mel Pickett Mysteries, and the Joe Barley Mysteries. His memoir Always Give a Penny to a Blind Man which covers most of Eric’s life from when he was a child growing up poor in working-class London through his immigration to Canada and the beginning of his attendance at University, was nominated for a Charles-Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction. He also wrote two stand-alone novels, Moodie’s Tale and Finding Home, the novella “Dempsey’s Lodge”, and a short story “Twins”.

On October 9, 2015, Eric Wright died of kidney cancer at the age of 86.