a beautiful place (think San Francisco or Los Angeles), and seeing Vancouver through Wiebe’s eyes will forever change the way you view the city. The brightest light, after all, casts the darkest shadows. Welcome back, Wakeland. Vancouver – and all of us – have missed you. Book Review by Robert Wiersema by Sam Wiebe Much to his surprise, and grudging displeasure, private investigator Dave Wakeland is back. Back in Vancouver, and back at work. When last we saw Wakeland – at the close of Sunset and Jericho, the fourth novel from Vancouver writer Sam Wiebe to feature the former police officer – he had given up his apartment, sold his shares of the Wakeland & Chen agency to his partner Jeff Chen and decamped for Montreal. “Think I can’t leave?” the last lines of that novel read. “Just [expletive] watch me.” Wakeland is in Montreal, fighting with the summer humidity and “trying very hard not to smoke” when he gets a telephone call from Shuzhen Chen – Jeff’s cousin, now a lawyer. Shuzhen is representing Maggie Zito who has been charged with the murder of a seemingly retired motorcycle gang leader and his wife aboard their float home at Granville Island. Shuzhen saying “I need help” doesn’t quite convince him, but when she adds, “You owe me, Dave,” Wakeland gets on a flight. The Last Exile is – as one would expect from the fifth book in a series – a well-written and compelling mystery, which draws Wakeland into the sphere of the Exiles motorcycle gang and its violent leader Terry Rhodes, who may be looking for some bloody justice of his own. He’s also thrown back into the business of the agency, which is struggling with debt, recalcitrant clients and Jeff’s unexplained disappearances. And there’s also the history he has with Shuzhen, which doesn’t make things any easier. Wakeland is an almost archetypal figure as a detective: quick with a one-liner and with a seemingly endless array of contacts and confidantes to whom he can go for information (with varying degrees of success), he’s equal parts Sam Spade and Jack Reacher. It’s always a pleasure to spend time in his company. If the Wakeland books were just mysteries, they would come with a strong recommendation; these are top-notch crime thrillers and The Last Exile is no exception. (It’s an especially pleasant read because the last book left the return of Wakeland a long shot at best.) These books are, however, more than mysteries. Over the course of the series, Wiebe has delivered one of the most convincing and powerful examinations of Vancouver and its ongoing changes that one is likely to encounter in fiction. He writes of a Vancouver which will be familiar to tourists, including places such as Granville Island and Yaletown, but he very carefully – and ruthlessly – peels back the veneer of gentrification and capitalization to reveal the violence and social costs underlying a glossy, glassy exterior. It’s a classic noir approach, exploring the dark underbelly of The Last Exile 40 | www.snowbirds.org
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