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Sam Wiebe

30 June 2016 | Email This Post Email This Post | Print This Post Print This Post

The author Sam Wiebe discusses his new novel, Invisible Dead: A Wakeland Novel (Random House, 2016), his Vancouver-based private investigator Dave Wakeland and the people he encounters as he solves a missing persons case, and Vancouver itself, with Joseph Planta.


Invisible Dead: A Wakeland Novel by Sam Wiebe (Random House, 2016).

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Invisible Dead


Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

Sam Wiebe joins me now. His latest book has just been published, Invisible Dead: A Wakeland Novel. It’s the beginning of a new private-eye series set in Vancouver. Dave Wakeland is a private investigator, a former cop. A missing person’s case is what he has to contend with in this book. Chelsea Loam disappeared eleven years ago, and Wakeland is on the case to find out what happened, leading him towards career criminals and some very powerful people in the city. The notices for the book have been quite good thus far. One compared his depiction of the missing women in the Downtown Eastside to Steinbeck’s depiction of migrant workers in the Grapes of Wrath. I’ll get Mr. Wiebe to tell us about Dave Wakeland, this book, and the Vancouver that he reveals. Sam Wiebe’s debut novel, Last of the Independents received the Arthur Ellis Award and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. His work has appeared in Thuglit, SubTerrain, and Criminal Element’s The Malfeasance Occasional e-collection, among other publications. The book is published by Random House. The website for more is at www.samwiebe.com. He lives in Vancouver, where he joins me from today. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Sam Wiebe; Mr. Wiebe, good morning.