Sadly, Michael Van Rooy has died. He was on a tour promoting his third book and died suddenly in Montreal on January 27, 2011. I promised myself at the time of his death that I would read this book soon. So 6 months later I kept that promise.

Monty Haaviko, his wife, son and dog are still living in the North End. It's not the best neighbourhood but they are getting along. Monty is babysitting from home while his wife, Claire, is working in a real estate office. One of Claire's renters asks to meet Monty. She is involved with helping refugees move from Canada to the US and sometimes they can't cross the border legally. She wants to set up a route from south-eastern Manitoba through Lake of the Woods and into Minnesota that could be used for these people. Somehow she has learned of Monty's past and thinks he might be the person to provide security and logistics. She offers Monty $5000 cash for his work. After discussion with Claire Monty decides to accept. Thus starts his problems for this book. It turns out the smuggling route is desirable for moving drugs, guns and other illegal goods and a local con woman wants to take control of it. Only Monty stands in her way of doing so.

This book is not for the faint of heart. There is a lot of violence and a lot of crime. Some of the crime is perpetrated by Monty but always in furtherance of protecting the route or his family. But Monty certainly is feeling the temptation of his criminal past. I worry that he will fail to resist temptation in the future. I'll have to read A Criminal to Remember to see what happens next. ( )

Beyond the authenticity of his research, in only two novels Michael Van Rooy proved himself as a great creator of character. Beyond Monty himself, the various people who populate the underbelly of Van Rooy's Winnipeg - and as an aside, a gritty crime novel in Winnipeg? Awesome. - are some vivid and intense personages indeed. His criminals are memorable, sketched somewhat broadly yet always with enough style to give them some personality. Only Claire remains somewhat a cypher, a woman of grit and substance who keeps Monty focused on his family even as he hangs out with decidedly unpleasant denizens of his past. Claire is an idealized character, too perfect by half for the life Monty lives, but there is enough of a character present to hint that there might once have been bigger plans for revealing her past in future novels.

Read the rest of the review here. ( )

Not my usual kind of book, but morbidly interesting. Monty is a criminal, only the nicest kind. He really wants to go straight but his definition of straight is extremely broad. He has a happy family, works as a babysitter, and is getting into helping Marie Blue Duck with her smuggling operation, getting desperate refugees into the country. Well, crime for a good cause can't really be bad, can it? It reminds me of the TV series Dexter, but Monty only hurts and maims when necessary, never kills. He creatively takes down the neighbourhood crack house with the use of a fire hose then he uses rather strong intimidation tactics to persuade the slum landlords to turn the place into a park. Meanwhile, his old gangster buddy Smilie moves in with Monty's family, claiming he needs help to go straight, too. Well Monty's no fool...he knows enough to suspect every move.
Sometimes funny, ususually deadpan, strangelly informational (as if you wanted to know). ( )