Book Spotlight | Angelhunting: A Seamus Caron Mystery by Ji Hong Sayo
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Having tried his hand at medicine, pickpocketing, and good old-fashioned thuggery, Seamus Caron has finally settled into life as a private detective, hunting down lost money and wandering husbands. It’s not glamorous work, but it pays the bills and provides a steady supply of fistfights for entertainment. The job also keeps him close to his best friend, Sandra Blair, a homicide detective for the Toronto Police. But when she calls in a favor on a murder case, Seamus realizes that the victim is a notorious mob lawyer, putting an end to what little stability and safety he’d managed to scrape together.
Seamus must find the killer before the murder sparks an all-out gang war. Luckily, he’s got help — a confidence man turned barman, the finest cook in Little Chinatown, and Maxwell Moscovitz, his new secretary. She has the mental sharpness and moral flexibility for the job, but she also has a few secrets of her own.
Seamus begins to suspect a connection between the murder and a new drug on the street known as Platinum, which promises obscene profits for its suppliers, euphoria for its users, and a shockingly high death rate. As he investigates suspicious overdoses, Seamus can’t help hearing echoes of his past and the tragedy he’s spent 20 years trying to forget. Caught between the police, the mob, and an anonymous killer, Seamus will need to face his demons, or he just might lose it all.
Sayo's debut novel introduces readers to a morally ambiguous private investigator Seamus Carron. While investigating his current case with his new secretary Maxwell Moscovitz, his best friend and homicide detective Sandra Blair calls in favour for a case she's stuck on. Convinced there is a connection between the two investigations, Carron and Moscovitz must navigate their way around Toronto Police, the mob and the killer.
As a die hard fan of murder mysteries (pun intended) and a former Torontonian, I began Angelhunting with lots of excitement. Being able to recognize neighbourhoods, landmarks, and streets is truly the cherry on top of the reading sundae. Initially, I started Angelhunting as a physical copy, but I couldn't find the rhythm. Switching to the audiobook allowed me to find the pulse of the novel and added cinematic flair to my reading experience. Patrick Garrow's narration highlighted the neo-noir style of the novel and further immersing the reader in Sayo's Gotham-esque depiction of Toronto.
I had the pleasure of being able to ask Ji Hong about Angelhunting. Check out the interview below!
Q- Seamus Caron is often underestimated, like Columbo and shares Batman’s moral ambiguity. What or who was the inspiration for him?
A- My favourite private eye is Easy Rawlins, and I definitely drew inspiration from Walter
Mosley’s stories. Seamus also has a slightly absurdist aspect about him—at his most
ridiculous he’s a bit Dirk-Gently-esque.
Q- When you started writing Angelhunting, did you know where you wanted the book to go/how you wanted it to end or did it reveal itself to you as you wrote?
A - I had the rough plot sketched out before I started—it depends on the book, but I think I’d find it difficult to write a mystery without knowing the culprit at the outset. But one thing that did come out in the process of writing was the characters. In my early drafts Seamus and Maxwell were very different, and it was only after several rewrites (and plenty of help from my excellent editor Kenna) that they started to work the way I wanted them to.
Q- The inclusion of a prion protein in the formulation of Platinum was unorthodox. What was the inspiration behind it?
A- I'm a biomedical engineer by trade, so I’m always trying to slip in interesting bits of biology. There wasn’t a specific fictional inspiration, but prion diseases are so fascinating that I couldn’t help but include them. I was looking for something a reader might have heard of but wouldn’t expect to find in a murder mystery—everyone’s expecting arsenic, but prions are a surprise.
Q- Angelhunting seems poised to be part of the series. When can readers expect the next book?
A- More Toronto, more murders, and the first clues as to who the Angelmaker is! The
Angelmaker is none too pleased that their Platinum scheme was thwarted, and Seamus,
Maxwell and Sandra will need all their wits about them if they’re going to survive the
retaliation.
*Thank you so much EWC Press for a copy of Angelhunting in exchange for an honest review
