Body Blows

By Marc Strange

From an Advance
Unedited Manuscript

Dundurn Press
296 pages
ISBN 978 1 55488 390 5

Ex-pug Joe Grundy has been hired to watch the back of a wealthy Vancouver entrepreneur, from what threat exactly he has never been told, even after taking a bullet for the boss. Not that boss-man Leo Alexander is unappreciative. He sets Grundy up as house dick in Alexander’s fancy new hotel, a job for which the once-capable boxer has little skill beyond recognizing how much he relies upon competent staff. Alexander is comfortable hiding out in his roof-top penthouse and comforted knowing there’s a big man downstairs guarding access, while few of Grundy’s fellow employees are ambitious to personally prove the Peter Principle, quite content to let Joe be paid to take responsibility for whatever screw-ups might occur. Occur they do.

When Alexander leaves his aerie on the first date in years, Grundy chaperones in the familiar role of protector. Sensing that the evening might not be unfolding to plan, they hasten home to find Alexander’s live-in maid, a friendly staffer who has been teaching Joe Spanish, lying dead in the middle of a kitchen battle scene, dressed to the nines. There’s a second corpse tangled in the rebar atop a pylon in the unfinished building site next door, spiked like a past-due invoice.

Alexander still isn’t saying much about why he’s felt the need for a body guard, but the police think he knows what’s behind the murders. With the boss under threat and suspicion, Grundy understands he’ll have to investigate, and quickly. The newly opened hotel is already getting cancellations. Staffers may be polishing their resumes. Find the killer and hope it’s not Alexander or their little world collapses.

Body Blows is a subtle blend of hardboiled style and noir sensibility in a satisfying who-done-it. Author Strange skillfully tangles webs of failure and deceit behind the sunny superficiality of familiar Canadian character types, giving them credible personalities. I’m planning a trip to my favourite bookseller for a copy of Sucker Punch, first of the Joe Grundy series.


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