Monday, February 23, 2015

Canary - Duane Swierczynski

Canary
Duane Swierczynski
Little Brown/Mulholland Books, Feb 24 2015, $26.00
ISBN: 9780316403207

In Philadelphia, college honors student Sarie Holland writes to her dead mom informing her with what is going on in her life.  Thus she tells her late mother that she attended a party in which drugs and alcohol were prevalent.  When one of the revelers D. needed to get a book, he enlisted the only sober person at the gala Sarie to drive him.  While she sat in her car waiting for D. to return, PPD Narcotics cop Benjamin Wildey arrived and inspected the vehicle, finding drugs.  To escape jail; time for possession, Sarie agreed to become Wildey’s criminal informant.

Sarie proves a quick learn of the illegal drug trafficking market with astonishingly uncanny instincts.  However, seeing her as his ticket for advancement, the ambitious impatient Wildey rushes the teen in a lethal situation.  Law enforcement and killers stalk Sarie sharing the same goal of executing CI 1373.

Canary is an exhilarating police procedural that is over the top of the Liberty Bell as the metamorphosis of the college student into a superheroine CI seems extremely unlikely though the audience will root for her to survive and successfully counter.  Sarie’s actions and reactions on the mean streets make for a wildly enjoyable crime drama.


Harriet Klausner

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