Thursday, August 07, 2008

Pg. 69: John McFetridge's "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: John McFetridge's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

About the book, from the publisher:
Sharon MacDonald has a problem. It’s not being under house arrest. It’s not the Iranian guy who just fell from the twenty-fifth floor of her apartment building. It’s not even the police surveillance that’s preventing her from getting to her marijuana grow rooms. Sharon’s problem is a stranger named Ray: He’s too good looking, and his business proposal sounds too good to be true.

Detective Gord Bergeron has problems, too. There’s his new, hard-to-read partner, Detective Armstrong; a missing ten-year-old girl; an unidentified torso dumped in an alley; and what looks like corruption deep within the police force.

In a city where the drug, immigration, and sex industries are all inextricably intertwined, it’s only a matter of time until Sharon’s and Gord’s paths cross and all hell breaks loose in this pitch-perfect second installment of John McFetridge’s rollicking noir series.
Among the praise for the novel:
"It’s refreshingly hard to tell the good from the no-good in this helping of cops and robbers, Canadian style...Bristling action, a vivid sense of place and nary a plot twist telegraphed. Exceptional work from McFetridge."
--Kirkus (starred review)

"Complex...a clear disciple of Elmore Leonard...a fun read."
--Publishers Weekly

"...Canada’s answer to Elmore Leonard, in some ways that doesn’t even begin to cover it. If anything, McFetridge’s voice is colder, starker than Leonard’s, something likely due the fact that this Made-in-Canada author wears his nationality like a Hudson's Bay blanket."
--Linda L. Richards, January Magazine

"This is the good stuff. Too much and you’ll be reeling around the room, blissed on the possibility of how good John McFetridge might get.... John McFetridge is a brilliant writer."
--Declan Burke

"Canada's answer to Elmore Leonard is going places...The title of Canadian author John McFetridge's second crime novel is as packed with rascally attitude as the book itself."
--Toronto Star

"[A]n absorbingly complex tale... There are wheels within wheels, plots within plots, betrayals within betrayals — along with confusions and hopes."
--Toronto Sun
Read an excerpt from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, and learn more about the author and his work at John McFetridge's website and his blog.

See McFetridge's Author Snapshot at January Magazine.

The Page 69 Test: Dirty Sweet.

The Page 69 Test: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

--Marshal Zeringue