Showing Last of the Independents: Vancouver Noir by Sam Wiebe

2015 Kobo Emerging Writer's — Winner, Fiction

2015 Arthur Ellis Award — Nominated, Best First Novel

2012 Unhanged Arthur Award — Winner, Best Unpublished First Crime Novel


What do a necrophile, a missing boy, and an unsavoury P.I. have in common? Private detective Michael Drayton is about to find out….


Twenty-nine-year-old Michael Drayton runs a private investigation agency in Vancouver that specializes in missing persons — only, as Mike has discovered, some missing people stay with you. Still haunted by the unsolved disappearance of a young girl, Mike is hired to find the vanished son of a local junk merchant. However, he quickly discovers that the case has been damaged by a crooked private eye and dismissed by a disinterested justice system. Worse, the only viable lead involves a drug-addicted car thief with gang connections.

As the stakes rise, Mike attempts to balance his search for the junk merchant’s son with a more profitable case involving a necrophile and a funeral home, while simultaneously struggling to keep a disreputable psychic from bilking the mother of a missing girl.