Swap, by John McFetridge

This is the third book in the Toronto Series I've read, and my appreciation has only grown for  John McFetridge's craft. In the guise of a crime novel, which definitely tours the seamy underbelly of Toronto (wait, Toronto has a seamy underbelly?) McFetridge explores a multitude of things--race, Afghanistan vets, 'making it' and what that means, and even post pregnancy career malaise. In this book in particular there is a theme that gets handled by many of the major characters--and there are a lot of them. It might be best described as "Okay--and now what?" As in, "Yeah, I've made it to the top of the crime heap. Now what?" Or, "Yeah, I've gotten married and had a baby--now what?" There's definitely a Peggy Lee "Is that all there is?" tune running through here somewhere.

In the foreground though are a plethora of schemes and deals and plans, people sizing each other up, wondering who to trust. There's a motorcycle gang, which now seems to run pretty much the whole Canadian drug scene but they've outgrown their youthful abandon and now drive around in fancy cars instead of riding bikes. But then, it's not about the bike, is it? Or so another performance enhancer famously said...