Friday, October 13, 2017

Invisible Dead (Dave Wakeland) by Sam Wiebe

For anyone thinking the USA is the only place where real good hardboiled private eyes are from... This one proves you wrong.
Dave Wakeland is an ex-cop and former boxer who runs  PI business in Vancouver with his partner Jeff Chen. Chen is the one with the business sense, Wakeland the one with a soft spot for lost causes and hard cases. Hired to look for a missing prostitute he gets involved with an old classmate who seems to have fallen from grace and clashes with a motorcycle gang.
Wakeland is partly the standard tough guy with some great oneliners, good with his fists and has a troubled past. What makes him more original is his involvement with a serious, bigger PI firm.
But hey, I don't read PI novels because I want the protagonist to be totally unique. I like the archetype, that's why I read them.
The story is dark, the social commentary never overblown but written with just the right amount of anger to make it work.
Definitely a new series I will be following.

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