2 BY JOHN McFETRIDGE

Another Canadian author this week with a couple from John McFetridge.

McFetridge has written eight books so far, the last three of them concerning his series character – Eddie Dougherty. Eddie is a police officer in Montreal in the 70s.

Series

Eddie Dougherty Mystery

1. Black Rock (2014)

2. A Little More Free (2015)

3. One or the Other (2016)

Novels

Below the Line (2003)

Dirty Sweet (2006)

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (2008)

Swap (aka Let It Ride) (2009)

Tumblin' Dice (2012)

I read Black Rock back in 2014 – review here and Swap back in 2011 before the advent of the blog. I’m pretty sure I’ve also enjoyed Dirty Sweet in the dim and distant past, before record keeping began.

McFetridge writes the kind of books I like to read.

In just three novels McFetridge has demonstrated gifts that put him in Elmore Leonard territory as a writer, and make Toronto as gritty and fascinating as Leonard's Detroit... (McFetridge) is a class act, and he's creating fictional classics -- maybe even that great urban literature of Toronto the critics now and then long for.
-- The London Free Press

Catch him at his website/blog here. He is a somewhat irregular poster though.

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere (2008)

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.

Tumblin' Dice (2012)

The High, a band with a few hit songs in the late 1970s, have reunited to play the nostalgia circuit at casinos. But for bassist Barry and lead singer Cliff, this tour promises to be unforgettable and even more worthwhile than ever. In this fourth installment of the Toronto series, these two band members turn the tables on the gritty underworld of casinos, as they rob the loan sharks and drug dealers who work at every stop of the tour.

After finding their old manager who had swindled millions from them years ago, Barry and Cliff decide to go for the big score and get it all back - and more. But when the Saints of Hell, the notoriously dangerous motorcycle gang, get involved, all bets are off.