Book review: Ocean Drive plot unfolds with absolute command of pace, tension and mood (2024)

Ocean Drive

Sam Wiebe | Harbour Publishing

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$24.95 | 314pp

Only a year after the gritty, sombre, and astoundingSunset and Jericho, Sam Wiebe’s fourth Wakeland novel, the New Westminster author returns with another propulsive dip into criminality that captivates from its first page.

Despite that prodigious output, Wiebe goes from strength to strength, with stellar characters, memorable settings, and clockwork plotting. And Wiebe’s style —supremely unfussy, to the point, and hard-edged — remains as alluring as ever. As does a world view where nihilism, despair, and hope commingle with a Molotov’s volatility.

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As Dave Wakeland’s arduous next case gestates, Wiebe turns from Vancouver to White Rock, and to a standalone tale in a retirement haven known for summery family fun and expansive Pacific vistas.

In Wiebe’s hands, the town loses that benign sleepiness. Among the well-meaning, lawful, and easygoing citizens Wiebe spies the opportunistic, the jaded, and the power-hungry. Secrets abounds, as do deals with the devil and political corruption.

Wiebe alternates his chapters between two locals whose paths violently collide.

He introduces RCMP Staff Sgt. Meghan Quick as kind of a success story who left her hometown for a career of geographical postings in Ontario and Manitoba. Returned to her hometown, feeling a hangover, and still stung by a divorce from her wife, Quick’s morning reverie is interrupted by a call about a house fire. Soon enough, a body is discovered. Later, there are others.

As the case intensifies and the dangers reach her own address, Quick’s values are upended, her comforts whisked away.

Quick’s junior by a couple of decades, Cameron Shaw has taken an altogether different path. As he walks away from Kent Institution, a maximum security federal penitentiary in Agassiz, he holds a brown paper bag of possessions and paperwork. He’s aware that statutory release means stringent regulations to follow and routine check-ins with his probation officer. He’s not free, he sees: “This is just a slightly longer leash.”

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Shaw’s also aware of an anonymous note left by an anonymous woman for a meeting worth his while. An hour later, Shaw, a man with restricted options, faces the woman — Zoe — across a diner booth.

A representative of a legal firm, she promises money for information. All that Shaw has to do is associate with certain people — members of the League of Nations, a street gang known for Thrive or Die tattoos and an allegiance to the Heaven’s Exiles Motorcycle Club. In Zoe’s view these people are likely to be impressed by Shaw’s manslaughter conviction seven year ago, when he was 22.

Although Shaw vows to keep his nose clean, he’s soon doing Zoe’s bidding. He gradually learns that he’s not averse to moral grey areas. Or to assorted crimes and misdemeanours, for which he has a natural talent.

Wiebe’s mastery of plot details is a wonder to behold. He’s economical with his words and careful with his sprinkling of bread crumbs. The plot unfolds with a breathlessness that testifies to Wiebe’s absolute command of pace, tension, and mood.

And as both Shaw and Quick come to live and breath the case, albeit from opposing sides, readers cant’s help but succumb to the page-turning impulse.

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From illicit border crossings and an extramarital pregnancy to arson, a casino project, gang rivalries, ill-advised partnerships, andmanyexecutions,Ocean Driveoffers a beguiling case whose puzzle pieces any armchair detective will applaud.

That’s Ocean Drive’s written so well — with such art and assuredness — makes it that much tastier a literary treat.

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