André Alexis was born in Trinidad and grew up in Canada. His previous novel, Fifteen Dogs, won the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. His debut novel, Childhood, won the Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Trillium Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. His other books include Asylum, Beauty and Sadness, Ingrid and the Wolf and most recently Pastoral, which was also nominated for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and was named a Globe and Mail Top 100 book of 2014. Alexis has worked extensively in radio and has hosted multiple shows with the CBC.

The Hidden Keys

Inspired by a reading of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, André Alexis’ novel questions what it means to be honourable, what it means to be faithful and what it means to sin. Tancred Palmieri, a thief with elegant and erudite tastes, meets Willow Azarian, an aging heroin addict. She reveals to Tancred that her very wealthy father has recently passed away, leaving each of his five children a mysterious object that provides one clue to the whereabouts of a large inheritance. Willow enlists Tancred to steal these objects from her siblings and help her solve the puzzle.