Sunset and Jericho by Sam Wiebe

(26. - 1165.) Sunset and Jericho by Sam Wiebe - In his 4th book, Dave Wakeland eases into a pair of cases. He brushes aside an invitation from Vancouver Mayor, Valerie Fell, to search for her missing brother, Jeremy Fell, for lack of useful information and the Mayor being too busy to meet with him. He takes up a request from Rhonda Bryce, a city transit cop and former office with Vancouver Police Services, to search for her stolen service handgun. It was taken when she was ambushed by a man and a woman at a public transit station and prison napalm (sugar water heated to a high temperature) thrown in her face.

Only in Canada would it be credible that a carefully orchestrated attack be made on a security officer to get a handgun. In America the attack would be disregarded as fantasy. An American needs only to stroll down to the neighbourhood gun shop to get a handgun.

The opening sharply contrasts with the previous book, Hell and Gone, where Wakeland observes an early morning bloodbath outside his office window. Masked gunmen kill commuters on the street and four men in a money counting room across the street. The dramatic opening worked well but it is more realistic that Wakeland gets cases in a less thriller atmosphere in Sunset and Jericho.

It is not long into the book when he comes across the body of Fell and another body being a man connected to the gun, Kyle Halliday. He also receives a warning in silver paint on his private office door to stay out of the way of the couple from the transit station.

Wakeland might, though it seems unlikely to me, have walked away from investigating the deaths but he does not react well to being threatened:

You can’t prevent being threatened, and you can’t win them all. But you can hold them to account.

There’s no forgetting with matters of violence.

The intruders were professional, leaving no evidence and destroying surveillance.

As Wakeland investigates he sets out his essential principle of detecting:

Hunches and conversation. It’s what detective work comes down to, time and again. Someone knows something. So you ask.

It is the same philosophy I use when building a court case.

The Mayor reaches out to him again to investigate her brother’s death and suddenly he has a client whose very name opens access and information.

It appears Halliday was a member of an extremist group, Death of Kings. The phrase comes from Shakespeare’s Richard II. A radical organization drawing its name from Shakespeare puzzled Wakeland and myself though both of us profess a literary turn of mind. There was a logical significance in the name I did not detect.

Zealots are frightening in their self-righteous uncaring.

Just as Jed “Hammerhead” Ounstead (A.J. Devlin’s sleuth) had a brutal reckoning in Five Moves of Doom, Wakeland must deal with the consequences of failing to heed the warning on his door.

Wakeland is driven by his personal code that he is not “the stopping type”. His obsessive persistence in investigations dooms relationships.

Wiebe has a great description for why a lone sleuth like Wakeland, even though he is part of a business, cannot function in a group:

“A guy like you goes full steam after something till he gets it. That’s not how a group works. A group’s got competing interests, political shit, compromises, favours. A group needs to learn how to be itself.”

Still someone is always willing to talk. Wakeland is proficient at finding the he/she/they ready to talk.

I regretted that Wakeland’s humour is pretty much beaten out of him.

Wakeland is a philosopher sleuth. Many exist in crime fiction. I think of Travis McGee as one of the most prominent, taking his retirement in chunks as he earns money as a salvage consultant. It is Wakeland’s ability to think that gives him the insight to break the case.

The resolution is clever - both credible and surprising. It is an uncommon combination.

I was disappointed that Sonia Drego broke up with Wakeland and moved to Quebec. I had hoped they might have a child. I now understand why Wiebe carefully answered my question about such a possibility in an email exchange on Hell and Gone. 

Wakeland gave up smoking for Sonia. He is now struggling with the unending desire for a cigarette.

Though Wakeland finds some comfort in a Syrian immigrant nurse, Naima Halliday, darkness has crept deeply into his life. The toll from violence and injury and regret and tattered relationships weighs heavy on Wakeland. I hope there is some lightness in his future.

****

Wiebe, Sam - (2015) - Last of the Independents and The Unhanged Arthur Award; (2016) - Invisible Dead and Sam Wiebe on His Sleuths; (2018) - Cut You Down and Sam Wiebe on Dave Wakeland; (2021) - Hell and Gone and A Vulnerable Tough Guy