Toronto author Howard Shrier’s took the prize at this year’s Arthur Ellis Awards for excellence in Canadian crime writing. And you can see why. Shrier, who counts crime reporter and comedy writer among his accomplishments, writes with an easy assurance and a killer sense of humour.
This is the second book in his series featuring Toronto private investigator Jonah Geller. A departure from soft-boiled Jewish shamuses like Howard Engel’s Benny Cooperman, Geller is street smart, fit and fearless, with a less than squeaky-clean past and a penchant for stepping up when needed.
The P.I. has recently opened his own agency, the enigmatically named World Repairs, with his best friend, Jenn Raudsepp, a stunning, wisecracking lesbian. Business is slow and the rent is due when he’s hired to find out why a young woman seemingly jumped to her death from her university residence. Bodies start to pile up, and the blood trail leads Geller to a neglected parcel of land on Toronto’s waterfront and a high-flying Chicago real estate developer.
One of the best things about Shrier’s mysteries is that they eat, sleep and breathe Toronto. It’s rare, and refreshing, to see the city portrayed so perfectly on the page. And this is the real Toronto, with all its bruises and blemishes.
High Chicago is a great addition to the mystery shelf. Jonah Geller is the kind of wise, justice-seeking guy you can’t resist, and his relationship with his gay partner gives a nice contemporary – and often funny – twist to the genre. Nick and Nora they ain’t.
Let’s hope there’s a new Geller in the works; the world could do with a bit more of the Jewish idea of tikkun olam, or “repairing the world.” — Lesley McAllister, NOW
Rating: NNNN (out of 5)
