Michael Blair

The Evil That Men Do Michael Blair

Fiction. On his return to Montreal, Riley becomes entangled in the wreckage left behind by a con man called Brandt who ran a Ponzi scheme. When the fifty-million-dollar scheme falls apart and dozens of people are left destitute, some of them figure that Brandt's wife Terry must know where he's hiding out. Riley's not convinced, but then Terry's the woman Riley was living with when he left Montreal twenty years before.

I've been a strong admirer of Michael Blair's writing since the publication of The Dells, his first novel in the Joe Shoe series, in 2007. It's a fine novel, and ten years on, Blair has further polished his writing: Riley is an engaging character, with a penchant for wisecracks, an ability to roll with some very tough punches, and a strong sense of decency. Add to that the other characters, each original and convincing, and an atmosphere based on Blair's own informed knowledge of Montreal and its environs, and you have a well-paced, perfectly-plotted tale for our times, and Blair's strongest work to date.--Jim Napier, Ottawa Review of Books