Sucker Punch

Here's something you don't read everyday - a Canadian crime-mystery called Sucker Punch that leans on pulp and noir traditions whilst doing its own thing as well. I got this sent to me by the Canadian publisher Dundurn Press, and I found that I enjoyed it a lot.

Joe Grundy is an ex-middle of the road boxer now turned security guard. He heads up the security at the Lord Douglas Hotel, a high-class establishment that plays host to the cream of downtown Vancouver, Canada. Whilst juggling staff issues and a dead-end social life, Grundy finds himself smack bang in the middle of a good ol' fashioned murder mystery with a touch of conspiracy about it. A local hippy has just inherited around half a billion dollars (snatching it out from under the noses of a pair of very angry corporate charity organisations), and he makes no friends when he announces his plan to give it all away to the masses. Grundy figures it's his business when the hippy gets murdered at the hotel on his watch, and he sets about chasing the mystery, chasing some staff who have gone AWOL, and chasing an outstanding bar tab.

The author of this novel, Marc Strange, is a character-actor and creator of some old TV series I'd never heard of (The Beachcombers). I'm not sure if this is his first novel or not, but I found it to be a very enjoyable, assured and engaging read. It's more remniscent of pulpish crime-mysteries in the vein of Raymond Chandler/Dashiell Hammett than, say, more mainstream crime fiction by James Patterson or Patricia Cornwell, which suits me right down to my bones. There's an urban sweatiness in the writing and if I had to pick out what Strange's strongpoint is I'd say it's the characterisation... this book juggles a huge cast of supporting characters (many of whom I suspect will turn up again if other Joe Grundy mysteries get written) and not once was I stuck remembering who was who.

Strange also seems to possess a deft ability to portray all these varying players and low-lives from the many stratas of society - shifty businessmen, money-lending gangsters, dodgy security guards, vulture-like relatives, ambitious journalists, scumbag journalists - without any self-consiousness or irrelevance. And anchoring all this is the narrator, Joe Grundy himself, an amiable and humble protagonist who could easily carry a few more adventures should the situations that arise not be too contrived. It's refreshing to read one of these books where the main character isn't a detective or a policeman, and the plot and Grundy's involvement in it is realistic enough for the reader to play along and believe in it.

Anyway, if you're a fan of pulp fiction or engaging crime novels, then I'd easily recommend this book. If you're reading this from Australia though you'll probably have to order it in via your local bookshop or just look it up on Amazon.