THE DARK SIDE OF WHITE ROCK
Real crime organizations in the seaside area the inspiration for author's latest novel
Footage of a brazen White Rock shooting in late February lit up people's social media feeds and left many viewers saying: “White Rock, really?”
But one person who didn't flinch at the seaside shooting was award-winning crime novelist Sam Wiebe.
In fact, Wiebe you could say, is prescient as his latest novel Ocean Drive focuses on organized crime in and around the White Rock area.
“It's not the place people think it is,” Wiebe said about White Rock recently. “(That shooting) really underscored that. The people who live there have seen it change. And it has gotten more violent.”
Wiebe, who calls New Westminster home, spent a good chunk of his teen years in the mid-1990s to early 2000s in White Rock and says he was aware of an underlying crime vibe then.
“There was always this kind of ugly underside that nobody ever talked about,” said Wiebe, whose mother still calls the area home.
The award-winning writer said his former stomping grounds are ripe for a story filled with murder, gang hierarchies, and relationships between civilians and crime organizations.
“It's right on the border, which I find fascinating. And it is this very insular town that is also kind of in the middle of all these transnational criminal enterprises,” said Wiebe. “It has these very deep and long-standing ties to different groups.”
In Ocean Drive, a seemingly upstanding local businesswoman is trying to gain support for a new casino development in the area. Circling the enterprise are criminal operators with their sights set on the new casino becoming a place to launder dirty money.
“It's just this idea that, if you think you have the town's best interest at heart and the best interest also makes you a ton of money, there's no end to what you can talk yourself into doing and accommodating,” Wiebe said about the storyline, adding: “I think it's always been like that. Organized crime is the dark flip side of capitalism. And the gangster story is always kind of based on the idea that we're basically no different than legitimate businessmen, except we are caught and they're not.”
At the heart of this story is police Chief Meghan Quick. A queer single woman raising her teen son on the heels of her relationship breaking up, Quick can't flinch on the job as she feels the familiar pressure of misogyny and mistrust that comes with being a woman in a powerful position. Also at the centre of the story is a paroled killer named Cam Shaw. Out of jail and working a crummy warehouse job — Wiebe has worked in a warehouse — Shaw has been recruited by a mysterious lawyer who promises him a big payout if he successfully infiltrates the League of Nations crime syndicate. Even after almost a decade in jail, Cam is willing to break the law in order to break even in the expensive outside world.
“Cam, he's done some terrible things, but he's basically trying to just get some sort of economic foothold,” said Wiebe.
“As that slips away, crime looks so much more as an opportunity for people. If you are never going to afford a house unless you sell drugs or look the other way while other people sell drugs, that really opens it up to say, `Well, why wouldn't I do that?'”
Cam's mysterious connection to the lawyer and his personal choices lead to a lot of very tight, violent situations in this layered page turner. Wiebe spins a tale, or rather a handful of tales, that are taut, terrifying and totally believable.
“I'm a Sun subscriber and Kim Bolan's reporting has been second to none,” Wiebe said about his information-gathering for his work and the award-winning crime reporting of The Vancouver Sun journalist. “I love true crime books. I like just talking to people, whether they are in law enforcement or just people in the neighbourhood that are kind of aware of things changing.
“I just find it fascinating. I love following that kind of social progress and change in a city.”
Speaking of change, this novel marks Wiebe stepping away from his familiar and popular crime story muse private investigator Dave Wakeland, who has been the star of four previous novels. Fans of the Wakeland series shouldn't despair, as Wiebe has just sent off a draft for a fifth Wakeland novel and, if the “publishing Gods” are agreeable, the book will be out next year.
Ocean Drive came to life after Wiebe stepped away from writing while he sat on a jury for a murder trial in 2017.
“I thought of it as a duty,” said Wiebe, who didn't want to elaborate on the case. “All I can say is I went in to do my duty and I kind of put the writer hat on hold. But, of course, just the process of being in the courtroom was fascinating.”
Once free of his civic duty, Wiebe returned to writing.
“The first draft of this book came quite quickly. I just finished jury duty and I came out of that after not writing for months and just had this story,” said Wiebe. “I really wanted to write a crime saga involving characters on both sides of the law. It was fun and also allowed me to explore a city I hadn't really written about — different types of characters and the relationships of those characters, which I think is fascinating.”
That break really topped up Wiebe's creative tank as he not only delivered Ocean Drive but, under the pen name Nolan Chase, wrote the novel A Lonesome Place for Dying, which is set for release in May.
“It's more like a Longmire traditional small-town mystery,” Wiebe said about the new book.