There is a sense of anticipation of the unknown that comes with debut novels. Unlike favourite established authors, you don’t know what to expect with a new author. Sometimes, there will be hints of a future satisfying read. Joel Nedecky was shortlisted for The Canadian Crime Writer’s Award for the Best Unpublished Manuscript in 2023 and now his novel The Broken Detective has been published by Run Amok Crime.
Private detective Jake Joelson is not at his best when we first meet him. He’s hungover and about to go to jail for fracturing a man’s jaw. His meeting at the bank to obtain a loan is not going well as he is already deeply in debt. When asked to show his driver’s license for ID, Jake hesitates, concerned that there might be some coke residue left on it from the previous night. Clearly, Jake is no angel.
That’s not to say that Jake has no redeeming qualities. The man with the broken jaw had hit Jake’s mom, Mary Joelson. She is an alcoholic who suffers from depression. Jake needs the loan to ensure she’s provided for while he’s in jail.
Mary and Jake have a classic co-dependent relationship. He has assumed the role of caretaker, cleaning up after Mary and enabling her addiction gives him a feeling of self worth.
Now, Jake needs money and he needs it fast. The judge has given him two weeks to get his affairs in order prior to going to jail. A sentence reduction will require an apology to the man he hit and regular attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous. He needs to pay down his own credit debt as well as provide money for his mother while he is in prison.
The tight timeline imposed by the judge becomes a ticking time clock for Jake. His task is next to impossible. Selling his truck will not bring in the amount of money that he needs. The tension created by the judge’s deadline keeps the plot moving along at a brisk pace.
Jake hits a wall trying to find a paying client. As soon as they learn he no longer has an active PI license, they withdraw their offers. But then along comes Nia Rowe, who doesn’t care about his lack of a license. She wants Jake to track down her missing sister, Sadie, and he grabs the opportunity. She was referred to Jake by a ghost from his past. He and Logan Bergel met while they were in the foster care system.
Sadie Rowe is a troubled young woman. She recently left Watershed Moments, a rather private church. Since then, she has been living with Nia. When she’s not working as an assistant in a marketing firm, she likes to party. Sadie left for work the previous day and never returned home. Aside from one cryptic text, Nia has not heard from her.
The entire time Jake searches for Sadie he must fight falling back into his usual patterns of drinking. The case is not without some challenges and surprises. In addition to the reappearance of Logan in his life, at AA Jake also reconnects with a man who was one of the few responsible adults in his life while he was in foster care. Jake cuts a sad figure catching the bus around Winnipeg while he investigates Sadie’s disappearance.
Jake has a bit of the hardboiled detective trope about him. He is street smart and very persistent in finding Sadie. Some might describe him as stubborn. Aside from his encounters with the people at Watershed Moments, many of the places that he searches are seedy bars and budget motels in the grittier parts of Winnipeg.
Alcoholic PIs and cops appear frequently in crime fiction. Think of characters like Matthew Scudder, Dave Robicheaux, Harry Hole and John Rebus. These are characters that you enjoy in spite of their flaws. Nedecky uses flashbacks to probe more deeply into Jake’s troubled past and create a solid backstory to his struggles. The Broken Detective is to be the first book in a series so Nedecky invests a fair bit of time in establishing his character. You will be happy to know that Nedecky is already hard at work on the second book.
Also see A Drop of the Hard Stuff by Lawrence Block.
Run Amok Books
Print
£16.99
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
