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Swap

by John McFetridge

With all the traffic over the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, the border patrols cannot possibly check every vehicle – a simple fact that criminals like Vernard “Get” McGetty count upon. Get is retired U.S. military, and plans on using his army connections to trade arms for dope with the lords of Toronto’s underground, the Saints of Hell motorcycle club.

Welcome to a very different Toronto than you thought you knew. In Swap, John McFetridge gives readers an in-depth look into the world of organized crime in the form of outlaw biker gangs, and the difficulties law enforcement faces trying to quash them.

The Saints run their operation like a business; they’ve been playing at respectability, and these days they drive cars more often than Harleys. In McFetridge’s underworld, business is as much about whom you know as it is about how much money and muscle you bring to the table. A tangled web of deals and double-deals drives the story. A fragile criminal truce threatens to collapse under its own weight after a hit gone wrong. The tension is palpable and the reader waits for the one spark that will ignite a bloody turf war.

After only three books, McFetridge is starting to make a name for himself as Toronto’s answer to authors such as Elmore Leonard and Ken Bruen. In Swap, he even name checks Leonard: Get says he enjoyed Dutch’s depiction of Detroit so much, he stole every last one of the author’s books. Swap’s dialogue displays much of Leonard’s sparkle, and the novel’s terse, staccato prose evokes Bruen. But Swap is more than just the sum of its influences. It grabs you by the throat and squeezes until you agree to read just one page, just one more page.

 

Reviewer: Chadwick Ginther

Publisher: ECW Press

DETAILS

Price: $24.95

Page Count: 304 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 978-1-55022-814-4

Released: Sept.

Issue Date: 2009-10

Categories: Fiction: Novels