This is a sad time for the mystery/thriller community. Steele had spinal cancer that metastasized and became untreatable. His passing was a blessing because he was in a lot of pain.

Steele was a good friend and a great champion of mystery/thriller fiction. And most importantly, he was a good person, who helped a lot of people along life’s way. I’ll miss hearing Steele’s booming base voice telling me, with an edge of excitement, what I should read next.

As a contributor to Deadly Pleasures, he was the “go-to” guy when it came to spy fiction. But he also enjoyed a good mystery or action thriller. I would often get e-mails from him with recommendations for good reading. And, as our tastes were similar, I often read what he recommended. Jeff Popple, another DP contributor, had similar experiences with Steele.

For several years Steele would provide us with annual columns called My Greek Reading Feast, in which he would give us short reviews of about thirty books that he had read while in residence at his family’s Greek villa that he and his wife Judy visited each summer.

Steele was influential in urging me to create the Barry Award for Best Thriller and it was my pleasure in 2017 to present him with The Don Sandstrom Award for Lifetime Achievement in Mystery Fandom.

He also served on the Barry Award nominating committees for a number of years and would frequently proof-read sections of Deadly Pleasures for me.

Steele also served for a couple of years as the Co-Chair of the National Bouchercon Board (along with Mystery Mike Bursaw) during which time he whipped it into shape so it ran as a non-profit should be run. He, with the help of others, created a Best Practices Manual so that future Bouchercons could operate more smoothly.

A few years ago his large collection of espionage and mystery fiction was donated to the University of Calgary. It was so large and comprehensive that the University has added a wing onto its library to house the collection. I look forward to visiting it when I attend the Calgary Bouchercon in two years.

Steele will be remembered for years to come and will be greatly missed by his friends and family.

Here is a list of his favorite books of 2024

THE SCARLET PAPERS, Matthew Richardson (Penguin, $16.99, May)
GALWAY CONFIDENTIAL, Ken Bruen (Mysterious Press, $26.95, March)
THE HUNTER, Tana French (Viking, $32.00, March)
THE LAST FEW MILES OF ROAD, Eric Beetner (Level Best Books, $16.95, February)
PHANTOM ORBIT, David Ignatius (Norton, $29.99, May)
ONE DEADLY EYE, Randy Wayne White (Hanover Square Press, $28.99, June)
A DEATH IN CORNWALL, Daniel Silva (Harper, $32.00, July)
DEAD GROUND, Graham Hurley (Head of Zeus, $30.00, October)