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The first mystery — “Who by Fire,” published in 2024 — introduces Dame Polara, who was raised as a sidekick to her detective father. As an adult, she works at City Hall in Toronto, lives in Parkdale and wants an average life. When she faces “renoviction,” she makes a deal with her landlord to investigate his wife, but ends up uncovering an arson conspiracy.

The second story starts three years later, and Polara is now the mother to a toddler. She still has no interest in detective work, but gets sucked back in when she becomes a suspect in the drowning of her ex-husband.

“This is the second in a series of what will probably be three books, but, I mean, there’s always the possibility there will be more,” Rhyno said.

As a high school English teacher and busy father, he said he schedules his writing in every day and is working on the third book now.

“It’s exciting and fun, and I have a good idea of how the story is going to go, but it surprises me every day,” he said.

Rhyno admitted his Dame Polara character is interesting to him because she is much different than he is.

“She’s a woman who has a different job than me, a woman who is smarter than me, who has gone through different things than I’ve gone through,” Rhyno said.

She was inspired by a real person, though. Rhyno said he worked with a woman years ago who said she had to go fill in for her husband who was a private investigator. She was already exhausted, and didn’t want to keep working, and this idea of being a substitute detective just stuck with him.

“I pulled in different elements from all these really interesting and strong women that I know, and that sort of formed the character,” he said. “Dame Polara became fun to write.”

He doesn’t quite write the book from her eyes, because that’s not how he sees the story. As much as he tries to empathize with her, he knows that after being “a dude for 48 years,” he can’t fully understand the detective’s perspective. But he said he follows her pretty closely and cares about her a lot.

“I really like this world, I really like these characters, but there’s other things I’d like to explore,” Rhyno said.

His first book was much different, he said. He published “To Me You Seem Giant” in 2017, and said it is a semi-autobiographical book that’s a coming-of-age story for a kid growing up in Thunder Bay.

“Who by Water” will be available everywhere as of April 19, but Rhyno said it’s already stocked at , at

He’s bringing a couple of friends along for his big book launch that will be held at ��(.) on Thursday, April 24. Rebecca Kelly will be the MC and will do an interview of sorts with Rhyno, and Andrew Hood will be doing a reading of his own work.

Rhyno hopes everyone will come, buy a book, and fall in love with Dame Polara all over again. If you haven’t read the first mystery, you can get that one too.

For more information on Rhyno, visit .