Canary
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4.1 • 29 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
It's dangerous enough when an ordinary college girl turns confidential informant. Even more dangerous when she's smarter than the killer, kingpins, and cops who think they control her.
Honors student Sarie Holland is busted by the local police while doing a favor for her boyfriend. Unwilling to betray him but desperate to avoid destroying her future, Sarie has no choice but to become a "CI" -- a confidential informant.
Philly narcotics cop Ben Wildey is hungry for a career-making bust. The detective thinks he's found the key in Sarie: her boyfriend scores from a mid-level dealer with alleged ties to the major drug gangs.
Sarie turns out to be the perfect CI: a quick study with a shockingly keen understanding of the criminal mind. But Wildey, desperate for results, pushes too hard and inadvertently sends the nineteen-year-old into a death trap, leaving Sarie hunted by crooked cops and killers alike with nothing to save her -- except what she's learned during her harrowing weeks as an informant.
Which is bad news for the police and the underworld. Because when it comes to payback, CI #1373 turns out to be a very quick study...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The wild plotting that Shamus Award winner Swierczynski pulled off in his intentionally over-the-top Charlie Hardie series (Fun and Games, etc.) doesn't work in this implausible story of Sarie Holland, an honors student at a Philadelphia college, who ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Through Sarie's diary entries, written to her dead mother, the reader follows her as she agrees to drive a drunken classmate, D., to pick up a book. Instead, D. has Sarie drop him off in front of a house being watched by Benjamin Wildey, a narcotics officer. Wildey takes Sarie into custody after finding drugs belonging to D. in her car. To avoid jail time, she becomes a police informant. In one amusing scene in a diner, Wildey uses condiments to explain the drug trade to Sarie, but such memorable moments are few and far between, and her transformation from na ve to street savvy isn't convincing.
Customer Reviews
Suspenseful
It starts a bit slow, but get moving pretty quickly. I like the female lead, not what you'd expect.
Canary
This a great read--starts out very slow in beginning half of the story. Many shocking twists that you couldn't predict. Roller coaster ride if you care about the characters. Enjoy!
DLP
I kept waiting for it to get good but it didn't. Not good at all.