John McFetridge is a Canadian crime fiction writer who published a couple of excellent series set in Toronto (more noir) and Montreal (more police procedural) a few years ago. Quite by accident I recently discovered that since then he has published a stand-alone (maybe?)novel, Every City is Every Other City, set in contemporary Toronto. The title comes from the main character's everyday profession as a scout for locations for movies and TV shows filmed in Toronto (in which the Canadian city and surroundings serves as whatever city or town that the given project is supposed to take place in. His part-tine job though, is private detective, licensed but not too serious about it, usually just taking freelance jobs handed out by the more serious detective agencies around town. But when a colleague asks him to find her missing uncle, he steps into a dangerous morass involving both the missing uncle and a Weinstei-like important man being accused of multiple sexual assaults.
The story flips back and forth between the two jobs, offering interesting views inside the film world's not-so-glamorous realities and the gritty real world of police corruption, the power of money, the lives of ordinary people and one who hopes to rise above the ordinary, a bit-part actress who hopes for the big time but also teaches improv classes at the famous Second City.
McFetridge's characters talk like real people, and a lot of the story unfolds in dialogue plus the also very natural inner monologue of the main character. Every City is Every Other City is the most enjoyable novel I've read in a long time and I can only hope that the author revisits these characters or introduces us to new ones in the near future.
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