Cut You Down

Starred review from December 18, 2017
Vancouver, B.C., PI Dave Wakeland takes on two difficult cases in Wiebe’s superlative sequel to 2017’s Invisible Dead. Surrey Polytech professor Dana Essex wants Wakeland to locate a former student, Tabitha Sorenson, who’s possibly an embezzler and launderer of college funds. Wakeland’s former lover, ex-policewoman Sonia Drego, asks him to track bent cop Chris Chambers. As Wakeland tramps Vancouver’s meanest streets, filled with beggars, drug dealers, and gangsters, he lets his intuition and conscience guide him. The parallel investigations modulate into one cleverly tuned commentary on a society that forces its citizens to choose between doing the wrong thing for the right reason and doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Hard and violent with the bad guys, and gentle as he needs to be with women, especially Sonia, the noble Wakeland strives to do the right thing for the right reason (if the wrong way). Wiebe convincingly brings Raymond Chandler into the 21st century. Agent: Chris Bucci, McDermid Agency (Canada).