Peter Kirby

Montreal’s Hochelaga district is in the throes of gentrification, its drug dealers and prostitutes are disappearing, and Luc Vanier suspects the neighbourhood cleanup may involve murdering the unwanted. The local Police Commander sees only declining crime rates and his improving career prospects, and is willing to go easy on a local militia group that’s expanding its influence. When Vanier is suspended for brutality, he’s on his own. As the threats against him mount, he continues to probe the dark side of progress, fighting to discover who controls the streets. Have the government and police stepped back to allow the militia to impose order? Is the militia the price of order when governments run out of money?

In Vanier's Montreal, thugs and lowlifes rub shoulders with the elite, and Peter Kirby follows up his critically acclaimed debut The Dead of Winter ("an auspicious debut from a writer to watch"- The Globe and Mail) with a riveting novel of corruption and street crime.