The Black Ace: A Brad Shade Thriller

Hockey scout Brad Shade learns that former L.A. Kings teammate and designated team pariah Martin “Whisper” Mars is dead, seemingly a suicide. With his professional and personal life slowly dissolving around him, Brad leaps at the distraction that helping Mars’s widow offers, only to find himself in Swift Current, a declining town whose social circles have a familiar tang of corruption. His investigation earns him indifference and hostility from the local Royal Canadian Mounted Police and attracts violent retaliation from the local criminal element, but Brad has no choice but to unravel the secrets of a friend he never truly knew. Virtually everything he thinks he knows about Mars proves false; he discovers a man whose past was more terrible than he ever suspected—a silent man whose determination to help fellow unfortunates ultimately cost him his life. Joyce, who has won four National Magazine Awards in Canada, proves as adept at mysteries as he is at sports journalism, sending his morose protagonist on a journey of exploration both general and very personal. In spite of one ludicrous sex scene, Joyce’s second Brad Shade thriller demonstrates the author’s easy familiarity with the genre’s conventions, with sly subversions, and leaves the reader eagerly anticipating the next installment in the series. Agent: Rick Broadhead, Rick Broadhead & Associates. (Nov.)