Angelhunting
A Seamus Caron Mystery
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A former thief turned private detective is drawn into a deadly web of murder, drugs, and gang wars, forcing him to confront his darkest demons to survive.
Having tried his hand at medicine, pickpocketing, and good old-fashioned thuggery, Seamus Caron has finally settled into life as a private detective, hunting down lost money and wandering husbands. It’s not glamorous work, but it pays the bills and provides a steady supply of fistfights for entertainment. The job also keeps him close to his best friend, Sandra Blair, a homicide detective for the Toronto Police. But when she calls in a favor on a murder case, Seamus realizes that the victim is a notorious mob lawyer, putting an end to what little stability and safety he’d managed to scrape together.
Seamus must find the killer before the murder sparks an all-out gang war. Luckily, he’s got help — a confidence man turned barman, the finest cook in Little Chinatown, and Maxwell Moscovitz, his new secretary. She has the mental sharpness and moral flexibility for the job, but she also has a few secrets of her own.
Seamus begins to suspect a connection between the murder and a new drug on the street known as Platinum, which promises obscene profits for its suppliers, euphoria for its users, and a shockingly high death rate. As he investigates suspicious overdoses, Seamus can’t help hearing echoes of his past and the tragedy he’s spent 20 years trying to forget. Caught between the police, the mob, and an anonymous killer, Seamus will need to face his demons, or he just might lose it all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sayo debuts with a dazzling hard-boiled mystery set in contemporary Toronto. Grizzled private investigator Seamus Caron is struggling to make ends meet since, in his estimation, "there enough crime and desperation for a man to make an honest living these days." In recent months, he's turned to parlor tricks to convince prospective clients of his deductive talents, craftily swiping one woman's driver's license before pretending he learned her identity from "the brand of your shoes, the time of your arrival on this particular Tuesday, the specific brand of perfume on your wrists." He gets a legitimate inquiry, however, when his friend, Toronto homicide detective Sandra Blair, asks for help with a tricky case. Criminal defense lawyer John Ryba has disappeared from his hospital bed, leaving behind nothing but a set of bloody sheets. Ryba's friends and the Toronto police assume he was murdered, but Blair isn't so sure. Caron agrees to investigate, and finds that Ryba was secretly involved with the distribution of a potent new street drug called Platinum, whose side effects may be far graver than advertised. Then another person connected to the distribution of Platinum turns up dead. Sayo nails the wry, fatalistic tone of the best neo-noir, and he sketches even minor characters with careful attention to detail. Fans of Robert B. Parker will be thrilled.
