Book Review : Sam Wiebe - Guns Across the River (2026)

There are two reasons why I read Sam Wiebe's Dave Wakeland novels even though I've largely stopped paying attention to mysteries. First, his novels are always on the verge of plausibility. They’re the anti-Elmore Leonard to some extent. No one exists in an alternate universe where grownups play cops-and-robbers. Everything feels real. Confrontations are dangerous and final. The other reasons is that it is rooted in Canadian culture. His characters are oddly polite, humble and could be your neighbors.

I definitely found these qualities in Guns Across the River, but they made less Wiebe-y somehow. I'm not sure what happened.

In Guns Across the River, Wakeland and his partner Jeff Chen literally stumble upon a young girl throwing herself off a bridge. Unsurprisingly, Wakeland throws himself in the river to save her life and comes back to shore with a slew of problems he didn't have prior. Notably, strangers are after him for reasons he only loosely understands. Sure, they’re after the girl. But they’re after the girl for a reason that's bigger than her and Wakeland combined. A shit show only he could’ve unearthed.

The One Great Unrelatable Character

Any book series hinges on familiarity. They feature a character with relatable qualities doing something they're good at in different settings and situations. In Dave Wakeland's case: solving puzzles no one wants him to solve. That's what makes him interesting, but that’s also what makes him an outsider to both law enforcement and the underworld. He's very much still great at his job in Guns Across the River. He's not the problem (at least not quite), it’s everyone else who is.

One of the reasons why I read less mysteries is that most crimes feel impersonal and therefore, its undoing feels repetitive. There's only so many reasons why someone would start selling drugs. There's only so many reasons someone would want to rob a bank. Money. Unchecked desire for wealth and the romanticizing of criminality are the two great motivations of 90% of the antagonist in mysteries and they sure are motivations for the new, somewhat replaceable antagonists of this novel.

A pleasure I derived from reason earlier Wakeland novels was his growing unhealthy intimacy with local bikers, but they are virtually absent from Guns Across the River and everyone's so busy staying alive and staying ahead that no one really reveal themselves. If Wakeland has these semi-unrelated chapters with his new paramour Eden Laing, he is kind os interchangeable otherwise. What happens in Guns Across the River is impersonal to Wakeland and remains so until the final paragraph.

Money and guns are the main characters of this novels are they are both fundamentally unrelatable.

Who’s Creatively Burned Out Here?

What is going on here? Am I just tired of reading mysteries or is Dave Wakeland in dire need of creative reinvention? I do think something needs to change with this series, but I’m not sure what. Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder series got a shot in the arm when its main character stopped drinking. Scudder suddenly became impatient, edgy and violent even though he largely remained himself. Now Wakeland is not a problem drinker, he's a workaholic with no identity outside of his job.

The literary doctor thinks Dave Wakeland needs a book entirely dedicated to his past. Maybe something wrong he's running away from? Or something he thinks he did wrong? Something about our perception of who he is needs to change. To dig deeper somehow. Because it doesn’t matter how spectacular the crimes he solves are, he feels like he’s on a treadmill now. I want a more Wakeland-centric Wakeland novel, does it make sense? I want his next problem to be slightly about him?

*

I’m being extremely critical here, but Guns Across the River couldn't be any more competent. Maybe it could be forty pages leaner (mid-century detective series were short novels), but it delivers on the fundamental promise of Dave Wakeland novels. It’s just that it does in a way that feels automated. The way you do your job well without even thinking about it. It will definitely please a part of Sam Wiebe’s readership, but it’ll enable the few readers like me to ask "what now?"

6.7/10

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