Invisible Dead

March 27, 2017
Canadian author Wiebe’s desultory second novel and series launch (after 2014’s Last of the Independents) introduces Vancouver cop-turned-PI Dave Wakeland. Gail Kirby, who’s dying, hires Wakeland to find out what happened to her drug-addicted adopted daughter, Chelsea Loam, who disappeared more than a decade earlier at age 24. But no sooner does Wakeland start digging than it becomes clear that there are dangerous players—among them, the head of the notorious Exiles motorcycle gang—who want Chelsea’s fate to remain a closed book. Given the detective’s strong white knight streak, nothing could spur him on more, especially once his path crosses that of childhood crush Shay Nelson, a stripper whose escalating drug habit threatens to send her down the same rabbit hole as Chelsea. Despite the enigmatic, intriguing tough guy at its center and gritty local color, the novel’s haphazard plotting and efforts to deliver a message about Vancouver’s vulnerable female sex workers, particularly Native ones, blunt the overall impact. Agent: Chris Bucci, McDermid Agency (Canada).

April 1, 2017
What I wanted was to save somebody, says Dave Wakeland, the PI in this Vancouver-based detective story, explaining why he keeps searching for a woman who went missing years ago and is surely dead. Later, Wakeland observes, Life is about eighty percent shit, accurately describing what lies in wait as this investigation proceeds. The beginning is conventional enough: a dying woman wants to leave the world knowing what became of the girl she adopted way back when, and Wakeland is advised to concoct a comforting fantasy and pocket a fat fee. But he keeps going, and when he discovers the girl was a drug addict and sex-trade worker, he's only beginning. His quest takes him through a vicious biker gang, the equally vicious corporate world, and even the art worldmaybe not quite as vicious, but every bit as corrupt as the other two. Wiebe illustrates the law of the jungle here, and he does it with great narrative skill and some very cool dialogue. Still, it's the grimness of his landscape that lingers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)