Wednesday, 3 January 2024

Book ~ "Hell and Gone" (2021) Sam Wiebe

From Goodreads ~ In one moment of public violence, everything changes for Dave Wakeland. When masked men and women storm an office building in Chinatown, leaving a trail of carnage, the Vancouver PI and his partner, Jeff Chen, find themselves caught up in a mystery that won't let them go. 

The police have a vested interest in finding the shooters and so does the leader of the Exiles motorcycle gang. Both want Wakeland's help. The deeper he investigates, the more connections he uncovers: a reclusive millionaire with ties to organized crime, an international security company with a sinister reputation and a high-ranking police officer who seems to have a personal connection to the case. When the shooters themselves start turning up dead, Wakeland realizes the only way to guarantee his own safety, and that of the people he loves, is by finding out who hired the shooters and why. 

What Wakeland uncovers are secrets no one wants known - a botched undercover operation, an ambitious gangster and a double-crossing killer who used the shooting to cover up another crime. With a setup like this, anything can go wrong, and does. Skill and luck are needed for Wakeland and Chen to emerge with the killers, the money, and their own lives.

Dave Wakeland is a former cop and now a private detective in Vancouver, BC. He is in partnership with Jeff Chen, who is the opposite of him. They are based in Jeff's more professional space but Dave hasn't let go of his rundown office space in another building. It's at his rundown office early one morning that Dave witnesses people masked, running out of a building and jumping into a van but not before innocent bystanders are shot and killed. He races down to help those he can. Once the police and paramedics arrive, not wanting to get involved, Dave says he didn't see what happened and only went down to help. But the police and a local gang leader don't believe him and when his life is put in danger, that spurs him into finding out what happened and why.

This is the third book in the Wakeland series (I'd read the first two a couple years ago) ... you don't need to have read the previous ones as it works as a stand alone (I didn't remember anything from the first two). It is written mostly in first person perspective from Dave's point of view but also in third person perspective when a couple characters are telling their stories. As a head's up, there is swearing and violence. I found there was a lot going on and it was hard to keep up with all the characters and it was a bit convoluted.

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