Sucker Punch: A Joe Grundy Mystery

by Marc Strange

Joe Grundy is an ex-heavyweight boxer whose main claim to fame was that he got knocked out by champ Evander Holyfield. Now he's chief of security for a posh old hotel, the Lord Douglas, in downtown Vancouver, and life is pretty good. But then a young neo-hippie inherits more than half a billion dollars and decides to give it all away. As soon as the kid checks into the Lord Douglas with the intention of holding a press conference to announce the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1550027026
• ISBN13: 9781550027020
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Dundurn Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

A startling success

Sucker Punch is a rip-roaring yarn, but it's also a nicely turned piece of fiction with some really lovely, vivid, original imagery (e.g. a powerful man is described as "a Borgia on a tour of his provinces", and his "Roman beak cleaves the air like the prow of a ship"; a woman's hair "is jewelled with raindrops"). The book is gritty and profane, yet its literary refinement is showcased on every page. It is tightly focussed, as disciplined in its own way as anything written by P. G. Wodehouse. It is also funny, often droll and sometimes laugh-provoking. This yin and yang of elements is a major feature - and strength - of the book. It raises a serious question about the purpose of money, at the same time as it offers plenty of action, lots of variety in the scenes and settings, and of course, violent confrontations (very well related). The large cast of characters is expertly handled, a few essential "brushstrokes" telling you who is who and why they demand your attention right now. Sometimes, amid the smooth sure-footedness of the writing, you are caught up by Joe Grundy's unexpected observations, e.g. "her eyes were wiser than his, or sadder, which might be the same thing", and "he has the ruddy complexion of a man who spends his days on the water and his nights by a fireplace". The pacing is excellent, and the plot is believable: not only do the coastal British Columbian hijinks ring true, but Strange declines to pull a rabbit out of the hat at the end, just for the sake of shaking up all our assumptions. When the end comes, it is jarring enough but given all we have learned, it makes sense. This reader thought: I should have guessed! It's clear that Marc Strange doesn't want to do things the way every other mystery writer does them. He is daring enough to use the first person, a device that is closely associated with "chick lit" and is not for those that don't know what they're doing. I think it works in large part because, apart from the obvious immediacy it imparts to the story, he's at the yin-yang thing again: the yin is the mainly laconic, almost telegraphic dialogue; the yang is the more discursive, painterly narrative. Since the character of Joe Grundy must do most of the speaking and all of the narrating, it's important that we don't tire of his voice, and we don't. But in addition, the whole book is in the present tense, which I have never encountered before in adult fiction. One moves through the story right behind Joe Grundy's shoulder, seeing things as he does, in both senses of the word. The character himself is something of a surprise: capable of great violence, yet a kind of gentle giant otherwise, and a moral man that others can rely on. He once was, and in a certain sense always will be, a heavyweight - not a copper, private eye, boffin for justice, Commander who writes poetry books on the side, or any other of the famous angles that mystery readers are familiar with. It's all very original. Marc Stran