AN UNBALANCED FORCE

Rising senior Ethan Granger lives a comfortable life in a gated community in Ottawa. He has a fickle girlfriend, Nora, whom he considers worth the heartache. The fact that his father is a self-described “smooth talker”—or, Ethan admits to himself, a liar—is brought home again when he sees his dad with some men in a strip mall parking lot in town at the same time that he’s supposedly just leaving the airport. After attempting to dig into his father’s business dealings on his own, Ethan hires private investigator Imani Abboud. But when she advises him that something illegal is going on and he should avoid danger by ceasing to look further, Ethan decides to continue on his own. Enlisting best friend Owen, old schoolmate Aki, and Nora (between breakups), Ethan stakes out an address he got from the PI. Eventually Jean-Guy, Aki’s boyfriend, helps with surveillance, too. An epilogue shares the impact on Ethan’s family of his completed investigation. His first-person narration will ensnare readers immediately, sustaining their interest as this compact, strongly paced story navigates red herrings and subplots. Aki and PI Abboud are well rounded in their secondary roles. Main characters read white; names cue ethnic diversity in the supporting cast.