WHAT IF WE COULDN’T HIDE THE DARKER ASPECTS OF OURSELVES, OUR LIES, OUR AVARICE?

smoky, sooty masses. London has been largely abandoned to the unclean, a smoggy world of sin and violence; a society of workers in service to the country-settled upper classes.

As the novel proceeds, however, Thomas and Charlie come to realize that the world they know, and are struggling to fit into, is based on a foundation of lies. The upper classes have ways of concealing their Smoke, masking and denying their own darkness. More crucially, though, the friends come to understand that there was a time before Smoke – that before the early 17th century, sins were carried internally. There is a Bible that includes no mention of Smoke, paintings that are free of Soot in their depictions of saints and heroes. And there are some, hidden in the ranks of the pure, who will do anything to return to that state.

Vyleta, who was shortlisted for the Giller Prize in 2013 for The Crooked Maid, has always been one of Canada’s most philosophically invested writers, and the central conceit of Smoke certainly lends itself to a thoughtful, philosophical work. For much of its length, though, the book’s moral questions are couched within a compelling thriller – almost a fantasy in tone. Thomas and Charlie find themselves drawn into the mysteries underlying their world and levels of conspiracies around the Smoke itself. They are shot at and pursued, hidden and betrayed, their lives shaken as they lose themselves in the crowded, sooty streets of London, where the future will be determined in the reeking sewage tunnels beneath. There are near-escapes, mysterious figures, hidden laboratories and forbidden cargo smuggled ashore. Heck, there’s even some romance thrown in.

For most of its length, Smoke is an intelligent, fastpaced, immersive thriller. Unfortunately, it comes to a grinding halt in its final act, as the philosophical questions push themselves to the fore, stopping the action utterly in favour of pages of lengthy exposition masquerading as dialogue. For most readers, these explanations and clarifications add little to what we already know of the world and the consequences of what has been happening; they serve only to derail the narrative at its most crucial moment. There is action after those pages, and a thematic and narrative resolution to most of the novel’s strands, but it comes a beat too late.

Despite that hitch on the ending, though, Smoke is well worth reading. Vyleta has woven a powerful fictional spell, creating both an entire world (as believable as it is incredible) and a richly crafted cast of characters. It’s a unique, and unforgettable, reading experience.