The earliest crime novels I read were liberated from my parents' bookshelf, and included cheap paperback copies of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest and a complete run of the John D. MacDonald Travis McGee series. MacDonald is my dad's favorite writer, and one of his favorite jokes--I use that term lightly--is to compare JDM favorably to Shakespeare, especially while I was doing my Master's on Henry IV. 

But MacDonald IS a great writer. Cape Fear* is one of the most legitimately chilling novels I've ever read, right next to Thomas Harris's Red Dragon. The McGee series, while a bit wish-fulfilling in terms of sex, dealt with real socioeconomic problems like the destruction of Florida's ecology and the rise of consumerism. My dad would put John D MacDonald ahead of the great Ross MacDonald, and honestly, I'd have to agree.

So the review of LAST OF THE INDEPENDENTS in the first issue of Dark Corners is especially flattering.

"Vancouver is to LAST OF THE INDEPENDENTS as Florida is to John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee novels...[Wiebe] is a writer that can deal with tough issues and does not sugarcoat...His prose is tight and witty, his dialogue is sharp and realistic, and the plot twists and turns to its final, satisfying conclusion."

Aside from a great review of LOTI, Dark Corners also includes my story "Next to Nothing". It's a magazine worth picking up.

(*original title: The Executioners)