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Disclaimer: I make a cameo appearance in this novel, but I would have given this book 5 stars anyway. Like one of his influences, David Goodis, Duane uses his city (our city) of Philadelphia as a great backdrop. As always it is fun to see places I am familiar with in fiction. It's even better when it's great fiction like this. I have been a fan of Duane Swiercyznski's crime novels for years now. Duane's prose is clean, tight, and fun. It revs along and you breeze through it at fast clip. It can
In CANARY Duane Swierczynski returns to more down to earth crimes. An ambitious, somewhat idealistic cop forces a college girl to become a Confidential Informant, or snitch if you'd prefer. Spurred on but what could be love for a hapless lowlife, Seraphina "Sarie" Holland juggles finals with dope gang infiltration. Imagine Nancy Drew in BREAKING BAD or Veronica Mars with fewer street smarts, and you have Sarie. Snitching though becomes as serious to Sarie as any graduate level seminar and she le...
I enjoyed the heck out of this. Swierczynski achieves a perfect balance here: the YA tone of Sarie's diary entries reminded me a lot of the feisty lady characters you see in Lauren Beukes's novels. And these passages are perfectly tempered by the flinty noir POV from Philly cop Ben Wildey. Equal parts sweet and salty bloody, family and fury, and with a wonderfully self-doubting-with-massive-reservoirs-of-untapped-strength female character at the center who kicks ass without fulfilling any weird
Very well conceived story line, excellent characters. Loved the book!
Relentlessly paced and exremely easy to read. However, I had a tough time getting past the fact that the main character is only 17 years old. I don't believe that it is realistic to believe a 17 year old from the suburbs would have that much freedom to move around a city the size of Philadelphia or able to achieve what this 17 year old does in this book. Any time this author has a book out is something to cheer and if you can get past the premise, then this book is a fun and wild ride.
Highest Recommendation! They sit in silence, watching the traffic go by. People headed downtown or up to the Northeast and beyond in Bucks County. People with no pressing worries other than what kind of food they want to order tonight or what movie to put on Netflix. People who speed by these neighborhoods without the slightest idea of what happens in them. Or even if they do, they don't give a shit, because they don't have to live in them. Down these mean streets a naive, teenage honors...
Honours student Sarie Holland, is desperate to avoid a criminal record that could destroy her future, but she’s just been arrested on a drugs charge. She agrees to become a confidential informant for the Philadelphia Police Department, but that’s only the start of her troubles.Even in a city awash with narcotics, offering up a drug dealer to save her own skin isn’t an easy task. It’s fraught with problems, who to betray and who to protect, add to the mix a corrupt police department, and dealers
Usually the only thing I don’t like about a new Duane Swierczynski novel is that it’s a pain in the ass typing out his last name in a review. However, this time out Duane S. stepped into a rather large pothole of bad character motivation and snapped an ankle of the plot so that this book was limping badly the entire time I was reading it.Sarie Holland is a straight arrow college student whose mother died recently so she feels a tremendous sense of responsibility to her father and younger brother...
In a classic case of ‘wrong place, wrong time’, college student Sarie Holland is pulled over and busted by the cops while doing a favour for a drug-dealing friend, D. Looking at a possible five years minimum in prison for possession, she’s offered an alternative – become a C.I. (confidential informant) for narcotics officer Ben Wildey (pronounced will-dee).Wildey wants Sarie to give up her pill-pushing pal but it isn’t that easy; Sarie harbors hopes for a more-than-friends relationship with D. R...
*3.5 Stars*I haven't read much Young Adult fiction, (or is it called New Adult fiction?), but I would definitely read more of those books if they were written by Duane Swierczynski, who seems to always try something new every time he writes a novel! Here, the author tackles a YA story and puts his own twisted spin on it. In the book we follow Sarie Holland, a young college freshman, who has the usual worries to deal with in college, like preparing for her honors finals, the attention of hormone-...
This was a very enjoyable book. Duane Swierczynski does a great job of fleshing out the characters so you really get to know them. The story was action packed and a little nail biting. I do have to say one thing that made me mad was Sarie not turning in the guy. It wasn't her boyfriend and she really didn't know him. What 19-year-old honors student in college covers for a guy she doesn't really know risking being arrested. She is probably too smart for her own good. I found myself wanting to avo...
I was fortunate enough to wake up at 5am and stand in line for an advanced copy of Canary. It was well worth it. We all know Duane Swierczynski is a fantastic writer. If you do not know that, where the hell have you been? But, this guy knows how to write exciting, nail-biting scenes, great dialogue, likable characters, and perfect endings. Canary starts off with a 19 yr old, Honors student, named Sarie Holland, writing an entry into her journal. This journal is her communication with her decease...
CANARY is one of those books I struggled to put down. The characters are engaging, the narrative is fresh, and the plot is fast paced. Using multiple points of view makes Sarie's soiree into the drug underworld that much more entertaining. Not only does author Duane Swierczynski provide a mechanism for Sarie's own thoughts as she confronts her unfortunate situation head-on via a journal-like blow by blow confession of sorts, but we get an insight into a broken yet glued together family dynamic o...
I am a huge fan of Duane Swierczynski (so much so that my phone actually auto-corrected something to his last name, which is pretty awesome) and even so I keep forgetting just how awesome and fun his books are.This one replaces Severance Package as my new favorite. A huge part of that is due to Sarie. When the book begins, she's basically your average college student whose biggest worry is being able to ace all her exams. And then she makes a random decision to give a guy a ride...and THEN all h...
Synopsis/blurb….Every student needs a part-time job.Hers is hunting criminals.Sarie Holland is a good kid. An Honors student. She doesn't even drink.So when a narcotics cop busts her while she's doing a favour for a friend, she has a lot to lose.Desperate to avoid destroying her future, Sarie agrees to become a CI - a confidential informant. Armed only with a notebook, she turns out to be as good at catching criminals as she is at passing tests.But it's going to take more than one nineteen-year-...
Duane Swierczynski has succeeded in writing a totally preposterous book that I wanted to finish even as I shook my head in disbelief at its very preposterousness. He stays entirely true to the voice of seventeen-year-old college student-turned reluctant criminal informant Sarie Holland; she writes, in an ongoing letter to her mother (the only way that Sarie's voice is transmitted to the reader) gems like, "So my bestie is a ho" or "You want me to dime on someone I don't even know?" or "Thing is,...
I love the writing of Duane Swierczynski and Canary fills that love. This is more of a crime drama than an over-the-top thrill ride that some of his other books have been. It's a study of a college student and her slide into the drug world, not by doing drugs but by trying to protect her loved ones and becoming a snitch. It took a while to get the story rolling but once it hit its stride it rolled along. I stayed up late to read the last 100 pages. Thank you, Mr. Swierczynski.
[I won this book in a Twitter giveaway from Little, Brown. To be honest, I had no idea what this book was about, but something drew me to it. I was lucky to win.]Holy sh*t.I'm sorry, Goodreads, but it had to be said. That about sums up CANARY. It's gripping and dirty and awful and real. I devoured this book. CI #137 is a real girl, with real problems, and she still manages to delve into the dark world of drug kingpins and turn into an intelligent, badass kind of Nancy Drew. You can feel Swierczy...
This is so good! What starts as a typical YA sort of story with a smart girl making a dumb mistake about a guy twists, turns, and finally explodes into a great crime thriller. The story is told with multiple points of view, this heightens the suspense and allows for a really intricate plot to develop. And this plot is perfectly executed and paced. The characters are fresh and believable, particularly Sarie and Wildey. The relationship between the two of them is fascinating to watch as their powe...
Girl, rule one, never talk to cops. Rule two, never trust a cop. This girl was killing me. She made the wrong move at every turn. The whole "wrong place at the wrong time" cliche has never been more true than in this story. They tried to make the character seem smart. However, she just kept getting deeper in trouble and barely surviving. She was dumb from the very beginning to try to protect some piece of shit guy she didn't even know. It kept my interest and I read it super fast which is nice.