Your Friendly Neighborhood Criminal by Michael Van Rooy
by Chadwick Ginther - Wednesday, Sep 03, 2008 at 3:12pm

Former thief and all-around bad guy Montgomery Haaviko is trying to go straight. Of course he manages to stretch his definition of "straight" to include smuggling, break and enter, assault, grand theft and kidnapping. Don't worry, though -- it's all for a good cause.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Criminal opens with a bank job gone wrong, but for once in his life, Monty isn't the one holding the gun. He may be (mostly) reformed, but you don't want to get on his bad side, as the hapless robbers soon find out. From this opening scene, Van Rooy quickly brings readers to the meat of the story, which shows us just how our heroic ex-con ended up at that bank with fistfuls of lottery cheques in the first place. Monty, it turns out, has been asked to use his criminal talents to help smuggle the disenfranchised into Canada. If he finds the request hard to refuse, it's not only because of the five thousand dollars he's being offered for his services.

In Montgomery Haaviko, Van Rooy has created one of the most complex and enjoyable crime protagonists I have ever read. The narrative is layered with Monty's clinical deadpan voice and righteous, ironic humour. Monty's various cons and heists are vividly described; the author, an obsessive researcher, has unearthed many seemingly random gems from the worlds of the Wild West, comic books, and literature, setting them all in a story about the underbelly of the Canadian crime scene.

Van Rooy introduced us to Monty in his stellar debut, An Ordinary Decent Criminal. That book got him nominated for the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer, and won the 2006 Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book. In his second novel he has upped the ante. Although story is more complex, the book remains eminently readable. Both this novel and An Ordinary Decent Criminal are examples of great storytelling from one extraordinary writer.

See also:

An Interview with Michael Van Rooy

Categories: Reviews, Staff Pick, Mystery & Crime, Winnipeg

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