Vigilante Season – a Luc Vanier crime fiction novel by Peter Kirby
Vigilante Season
A Luc Vanier Novel by Peter Kirby
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.
Date of Publication
2013-10-12
ISBN Print
9781927535233
Inspector Luc Vanier is back, and Montreal Hochelaga district is in the throes of gentrification. Its drug dealers and prostitutes are disappearing, and Vanier, investigating the brutal death of one, suspects the neighbourhood cleanup may involve murdering the unwanted. The local Police Commander sees only declining crime rates and his improving career prospect, 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. He continues to probe the dark side of progress, while struggling to help his son, just back from Afghanistan and crippled by PTSD. As the threats against him mount, Vanier fights to prove his innocence and discover who really 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.
About author Peter Kirby:
Peter Kirby practices international law with one of Canada’s largest law firms. He was born in Cork, Ireland, and grew up in Brixton, South London. He has been recognized by The American Lawyer as one of Canada’s leading 500 lawyers and called a star in international arbitration by Benchmark Litigation. He lives in Montreal. Read Peter Kirby biography.
Reviews – Praise for The Dead of Winter:
“Taut. Claustrophobic. Compelling.” – Will Ferguson
“Powerful. Dark. Raw.” – Kathy Reichs
“Riveting.” – John Farrow
“Gripping. Compelling.” – Montreal Gazette
“Grim. Convincing. Believable.” – Montreal Review of Books
“Irishman Kirby joins John Brady and Peter Robinson in the ranks of the best English and Irish ex-pat crime novelists living in Canada.” – Nuacht
“One of the pleasures of Kirby’s novel is the setting. Thugs and lowlifes rub shoulders with the elite, while the city is pummelled by an endless succession of vicious snowstorms…Kirby puts Vanier through his paces chasing a killer in a book that’s fast-paced and enjoyable.” — Maclean’s
“Inspector Luc Vanier of the Montreal PD seems a character likely to join the ranks of Canada’s enduring sleuth figures.”- The Toronto Star
“An auspicious debut from a writer to watch” – The Globe and Mail
Excerpt from Vigilante Season:
“The alley was dark and only half as wide again as the car. It stank from food scraps leaking from a garbage bag with its belly split open, a feast for rats and raccoons. Someone had written POLICE=CHIENS on the wall, others had dropped cheap bouquets beneath the sign, the flowers already faded and dry. It was easy to see where the kid had fallen; a long dark stain traced a rivulet from the spot where blood spilled from his head, to where it pooled in the middle of the alley.”
***
“Someone cared enough to package him up for disposal,” said Vanier. “He wasn’t just killed; he was tortured to death over a couple of hours. Angry junkies don’t do that. Maybe it was his supplier, but why go to the trouble? They took his stash, his money, his weapons, but they also took him. Why didn’t they just kill him there? It’s not an ordinary drug killing. But I don’t know what the hell it is.”