Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

A shocking opening sets the stage for a fast-paced noir thriller that marries powerful drug cartels with international biker gangs enjoying unfettered opportunity in Toronto, where supply and demand drive an insatiable market. In McFetridge's thriller, the characters are colorful, the city teeming with thugs, drugs and a sophisticated market that has long since transcended independent biker gangs and an infusion of mob money, more sophisticated and creative as the times require. From the first chapter, when an Iranian plunges to his death from twenty-five stories, landing gracelessly on the windshield of an SUV parked in an alley, the surprised occupants' business transaction abruptly curtailed, cops quickly swarming over the scene, it is clear this city is in the throes of free enterprise gone wild. Watching the action from her apartment in the building, ex-stripper, self-employed weed entrepreneur Sharon Macdonald worries that her top floor grow rooms may be compromised by the enterprising detectives. She's right. Although it takes a while before the dead man is identified, the detectives have not only spotted Sharon's enterprise, but are carefully monitoring increased suspicious activity by the cartel. It's in the air: something is going down. Recently returned to work after bereavement leave, Gord Bergeron is adapting to a new partner, the sharp-dressing, handsome Armstrong, the detectives called from the scene to aid in a search for a missing girl, later puzzling over their next call, a torso found in an alley; the partners rendezvous with their fellow officers, discussing the uneasiness in the streets and how much corruption may have tainted the department. With so much money available, temptation is unavoidable. Indeed, the cops are right, a move is in the works, but even Sharon, with her inside connections, cannot guess the extent of the coming changes. Her supply currently unavailable, Sharon meets with Ray, a new guy in town, who promises an outrageous supply, his presence sure to attract the notice of the ruthless bikers-cum-businessmen who control Toronto's drug market. From earnest cops to petty hustlers, stone killers to undercover narcs, crime proceeds unimpeded by an overworked force, Toronto is a cornucopia of opportunity. A formerly loose confederation of independent operators has morphed into an organization that absorbs the opposition while disposing of any fools who get in the way. From detectives to crooks and all the players in between, the novel rocks from enforcement to violence, Sharon and her new friend small fry in the grand scheme of things, but determined to survive unscathed from the coming conflagration. Massage parlors, grow rooms, strip clubs, slums and gated condos compete for room in a city transformed by greed, corruption and mayhem, a few good men policing the mean streets in McFetridge's rollicking story. Luan Gaines/ 2008.

Why do writers and reviewers like Ken Bruen, Parnell Hall and others keep comparing literary crime writer John McFetridge to Elmore Leonard? Because McFetridge is the real deal. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, his latest novel, is tough, gritty, authentic, and peopled with characters who survive on quick wits and dark gallows humor on the mean streets of Toronto, one of North America's largest, most disfunctional cities. Once known as "Toronto, The Good," McFetridge has captured the darkest underbelly of "Toronto, The Bad," with the sharpest eye for location and character and the keenest ear for dialogue. Feeding off real life stories that have peppered the city's media for the past few years--from international biker wars and drug cartels, to an explosion of ethnic marijuana grow-ops, to the discovery of an unidentified headless, limbless corpse that recently turned up in a back alley garbage bin--McFetridge has packed it all into a taut, suspense filled mystery told through the eyes of a highly believable and enjoyable ensemble of straight and crooked cops; a down-on-his luck new guy in town with a sure-fire, get-rich-quick scheme that could get him killed; and a stripper playing footsy with a stranger who might be a hustler, a cop, or her best chance of surviving one more day in Nowhere. One of the best-ever openings for a crime novel. Congratulations, Mr. McFetridge. Reviewed by Joseph Mark Glazner (AKA Shamus and Arthur Ellis Nominee Joseph Louis)