Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* For nearly a decade, Swierczynski (Point & Shoot, 2013) has been firing off adrenaline-fueled, ultraviolent thrillers that mix pulp fiction, sci-fi, crime, and fantasy into a unique brew. Canary is a change-up, a riveting conventional thriller about Philadelphia's drug trade; Philly cops, both righteous and corrupt; and Serafina Sarie Holland. Sarie is a very smart and conscientious 17-year-old college freshman who innocently agrees to give a friend a ride and ends up forced to be a confidential informant for narcotics cop Ben Wildey. She risks jail by refusing to give up her friend, but she convinces Wildey she can lead him to other dealers. Her efforts toss her into an escalating war over control of the city's drug trade, corrupt cops, and some of Swierczynski's signature spectacular violence and all this goes down as Sarie's semester finals loom. Sarie is a luminous character, and she's part of a realistically imagined family grieving over the death of a wife and mother. Her father is bending under the weight of their loss. Her insightful 12-year-old brother, Marty, broods silently and intuits that Sarie is in big trouble. Swierczynski's Philly is painted in dark and gritty photorealistic detail and includes some hilarious bits of historical arcana. Memorable characters, suspense, a native's portrait of a fascinating city, eruptions of spectacular violence fans of hard-edged crime will love this one.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The wild plotting that Shamus Award-winner Swierczynski pulled off in his intentionally over-the-top Charlie Hardie series (Fun and Games, etc.) doesn't work in this implausible story of Sarie Holland, an honors student at a Philadelphia college, who ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Through Sarie's diary entries, written to her dead mother, the reader follows her as she agrees to drive a drunken classmate, D., to pick up a book. Instead, D. has Sarie drop him off in front of a house being watched by Benjamin Wildey, a narcotics officer. Wildey takes Sarie into custody after finding drugs belonging to D. in her car. To avoid jail time, she becomes a police informant. In one amusing scene in a diner, Wildey uses condiments to explain the drug trade to Sarie, but such memorable moments are few and far between, and her transformation from naïve to street savvy isn't convincing. Agent: David Hale Smith, Inkwell Management. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Starred Review. Sarie Holland is a typical honors student, yet her life becomes anything but when she gives a cute guy a ride and it turns out to be a drug buy. Before she knows it, he's on the run, and she's been arrested. In order to avoid possible jail time, Sarie agrees to become a confidential informant (CI) for well-meaning undercover narcotics officer Ben Wildey, who is determined to bring down drug czar Chuckie Morphine. Wildey has his hands full with Sarie; however, she's determined to bring him a big fish and get him off her back, without getting her friend arrested. It seems CIs have been disappearing at an alarming rate, and Sarie's proactive nature may backfire in a fatal way. VERDICT This high-on-thrills, low-on-gore thriller from Shamus Award winner Swierczynski (Fun & Games; Hell & Gone) is really a family story at heart and is told in large part through Sarie's diarylike letters written to her deceased mother. This gives the novel a poignant edge, while showcasing Sarie's dry wit and original voice. Her herculean efforts to keep her father and younger brother from becoming suspicious while her life spirals out of control are a joy for any fan of clever, edgy thrillers populated with quirky characters.-Kristin Centorcelli, Denton, TX (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
When police coerce a whip-smart college student into being a confidential informant, they get more than they bargained for. In a long, rambling and cheeky letter to her mother, Sarie Holland describes her arrest and incarceration on a drug charge. A more prosaic account from the perspective of undercover narcotics officer Benjamin F. Wildey counterpoints segments of Sarie's letter. Wildey gives his catch a cheap burner phone and demands that she become his informant or face harsh prosecution. Shrewd Sarie immediately begins living a double life, lying to her clueless father as she fields persistent texts from Wildey and behaves with uncharacteristic abruptness. Wildey feels guilty but not guilty enough to cut Sarie loose. Meanwhile, Sarie's suspicious brother, Marty, notes the change in his sister's behavior and wonders what she could be up to. Soon after Wildey sets Sarie up to trap users with fake packets of drugs, Sarie, chafing under the officer's control, starts to revolt in little ways. A close brush with mortality pulls her up short. Sensing her skittishness, Wildey begins to monitor her more closely. As the two seem headed for a showdown, Sarie's family begins probing the situation, which can't possibly end well. Inventive Swierczynski, author of the popular Charlie Hardie trilogy (Point and Shoot, 2013, etc.), breathes fresh life into a familiar plot with shifting perspectives, sly humor, puckish chapter titles and a crackerjack pace. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
