Cut Throat

Gemma Files is a Toronto-based freelance writer.

Think CanCon is boring? Try this on for size: “A shadow on the wall .
. . made the druggist turn from the acupuncture table. [He] opened his
mouth to summon help, but one of the punks rammed a gleaming needle into
his eye. The acupuncture tool drew a squirt of ocular fluid before it
pierced the retina and jabbed into his brain.”

Yes, Slade is at it again. His latest creation brings together RCMP big
gun Robert LeClerq, star of his first book, and AC/DC-loving redcoat
Zinc Chandler, star of his second—pitting them against the Fankuang
Tzu, a Hong Kong pharmaceuticals company whose policies make racism
positively palatable (“Sinister Orientals passed out with the
1930s,” says one of their CEOs, with a sly postmodern wink to the
reader). Packed with enough non-PC sex, gore, and action to stimulate
the most jaded palate, all of it presented in paragraphed sentences, Cut
Throat is an irresponsible and indefensible book written by a sick,
deluded person—not to mention the only “airport read” I’ve ever
seen that comes with its own reference bibliography. I enjoyed it very
much, and so—if you can take the pace—might you.