A woman witnesses a cold-blooded killing on a Toronto street when a man climbs out of the passenger seat of a car stopped in traffic and calmly shoots a man in a car pulled up behind his. She tells the police what she knows - except for the fact that she recognized the driver of the car. That might just come in handy, she thinks, because that's how she rolls. She had tried to rent out space to the driver, a Russian involved in some shady business, and thinks maybe he could take on some vacant space in a buidling that's partially rented by a man who has an online porn business. McFedtridge does a fine job of introducing us to a chameleon-like self-made Canadian who has a thriving online buisness, a Russian emigre who has a pain-in-the-ass mafiya uncle who kind of like Toronto, a woman who's cooly thinking about her options (but lacks much in the way of a sense of self-preservation), and the cops who are investigating the murder. He doesn't waste words but the laconic characters become totally real in a tangled, messy, sometimes farcical comedie humaine.

Dirty Sweet holds such promise for McFetridge as a true heir to the greats, not simply an imitator (for examples of bad quality simulations, see Dave Barry’s Big Trouble, a good concept buried underneath a too-self-conscious style). It equals the lesser works of the giants, and to help rank it, it is miles above Brown’s Requiem, the first novel of James Ellroy (another crime writer who has gone so far past his early works that American Tabloid should have earned him the Pulitzer). McFetridge’s storytelling talent is terrific, and with a little seasoning, he will have earned a place among the greats.

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I really wanted to like this series about Toronto. Alas, if I'm not engaged with the main character(s) in the first 20 pages or so, I consider the book a dud and move on to the next novel. ( )