Joanne Kilbourn


Joanne Kilbourn is a fictional Canadian detective, who appears in mystery novels by Gail Bowen.

Overview

In Deadly Appearances, the first Kilbourn novel, she is a political strategist and advisor to Andy Boychuk, a politician who is murdered just hours after being elected Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan. Kilbourn is forced to solve his murder while contending with the fact that the murderer is attempting to kill her too. In later novels, Kilbourn subsequently changes careers, becoming a political science professor in Regina, and later serves as a political commentator with a local television station. In the course of the later novels, she solves crimes committed both within the academic community and throughout the province of Saskatchewan.
Kilbourn is also a widow, whose husband was himself murdered several years before the events of Deadly Appearances. In A Colder Kind of Death, she is forced to investigate the killing of her late husband's murderer.

Adaptations

Six of the Kilbourn mysteries were adapted for television by Shaftesbury Films and CTV. Wendy Crewson played Kilbourn. Victor Garber, and later Shawn Doyle played her police assistants.
List of films

Joanne Kilbourn mysteries

Deadly Appearances, 1990Murder at the Mendel, 1991The Wandering Soul Murders, 1992A Colder Kind of Death, 1994A Killing Spring, 1996Verdict in Blood, 1998Burying Ariel, 2000The Glass Coffin, 2002The Last Good Day, 2004The Endless Knot, 2006The Brutal Heart, 2008The Nesting Dolls, 2010Kaleidoscope, 2012The Gifted, 201312 Rose Street, 2015What's Left Behind, 2016Winner's Circle, 2017A Darkness of the Heart, 2018The Unlocking Season, 2020An Image in the Lake, 2021What's Past Is Prologue, 2022The Legacy, 2023The Solitary Friend, 2025