Booklist Review of Grinder

Canadian Knowles’ short, taut thriller is set on Prince Edward Island and in and around Toronto. Two years ago, Wilson barely survived a Mob shootout and escaped from Toronto with most people thinking he was dead. He recuperated and began to build a new life in a small fishing village on Prince Edward Island. Despite living off the grid, his past eventually catches up to him, and he’s drawn back to Toronto. Wilson doesn’t want to return to his old life, but he must complete one final task, finding out who kidnapped the foolish sons of the local Mob boss after they talked about Mob business on a series of YouTube videos. With lots of action and tension and plenty of dialogue, Wilson’s story moves along rapidly as he struggles to cut his ties to the past.

— Jessica Moyer

Hamilton Spectator Review of Grinder

Grinder, by Hamilton author Mike Knowles, is the second in a trilogy. It's loaded with compact, colourful writing that aims for that tiny spot between your eyes... a dead centre hit. Grinder is rich in blunt detail, a sharp lesson in economic completeness. Knowles makes his explosive point, moves forward and leaves your imagination reeling yet ready for more. Wilson is a grinder, someone who finds out everything. Bullets are among his chief assets. And he's very good at his job. In a few brief chapters bad boy Wilson recovers from serious bullet wounds, disappears along with $200,000, and surfaces on a boat off P.E.I. It's all vividly drawn and unpredictable. A Hamilton mobster's nephew is missing -- not a great loss and likely deserved. But it turns the mobster septic and Wilson returns to settle the mess. The grinder grinds--the guilty pay -- there are no innocents. Read Mike Knowles' first novel, Darwin's Nightmare, and now, Grinder. They are sharp, focused indications of a fine, new noir talent in our midst. Hang in there for the third.

Globe and Mail Review of Grinder

This is the second outing for Knowles – the first was Darwin's Nightmare – and his antihero, Wilson, is back, gone from his haunts in Hamilton and safely in hiding in B.C. He promised his old boss to get off the grid, and he has kept that promise. But then a man comes hunting for him – a man with a gun and a woman in the trunk of his car.

Knowles is working hard to take Wilson into the world of characters like Lee Child's Jack Reacher. He hasn't made it there yet, but there's hope. He's a good atmospheric writer and he has the lingo down, but it takes more than 178 pages to get into the kind of tough guy he's building. Book three may be the breakout.

Winnipeg Free Press Review of Grinder

Wilson, a guy with no first name, is The Grinder (ECW Press, $25, 220 pages), a ghostly underworld fixer who goes off the grid as a P.E.I. tuna fisherman to escape mob infighting in author Mike Knowles' native southern Ontario.

Unearthed by his über-nasty former boss and blackmailed with threats against his only friends, Wilson plows through a gaggle of underlings to find out who's grabbed the boss's gangster-wannabe nephews.

There's more mayhem than mystery in this thin sequel to Knowles' 2008 debut, Darwin's Nightmare, and Wilson flunks the sympathetic anti-hero test with his unrelieved brutality.

Still, Grinder displays some nascent storytelling chops and a viable future for the Hamilton schoolteacher.

Library Journal Review of Grinder

Trained hit man and problem solver Wilson (Darwin's Nightmare) comes out of forced retirement to help his old crime boss find his missing nephews. Wilson meets the mean streets of Toronto and some of the ugliest bad guys in crime fiction. VERDICT Knowles combines nonstop action with gritty violence to hold the reader's attention. For fans of hard-boiled mysteries.

Publishers Weekly Starred Review of Grinder

Grinder by Mike Knowles

Razor-edged prose and a sympathetic antihero lift Knowles's no-holds-barred crime thriller, the sequel to Darwin's Nightmare (2008), which introduced the mob enforcer known only as Wilson. Wilson has left behind the person he was in Hamilton, Ont., where he worked for mob boss Paolo Donati. He's found a new life on Prince Edward Island as a hired hand on a fishing boat. Unfortunately, after Wilson's attempt to aid a dying politician results in his photo being splashed across Canadian front pages, Donati sends a thug to find him. Though Wilson is easily able to dispatch his tracker, he realizes he can't further endanger the people he has come to care for in his new community. He returns to Hamilton to locate those responsible for the disappearance of Donati's nephews. While not for those uncomfortable with gore, readers who like their mean streets really mean will be thoroughly satisfied. (Oct.)

One Month To Go

Only one month to go to the release of Grinder.

Grinder is an intelligent character study with real depth and insight. Note-perfect attention to detail and an analysis of morality, loyalty and one man’s journey into his own heart of darkness. But don’t let that fool you, it’s also got page-turning action, fantastic dialogue and some of the most muscular prose you’ll ever read.

John McFetridge, author of Dirty Sweet, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, and the upcoming Swap.

Grinding Down to the Release

Some early words of encouragement for Grinder. Seriously, what chance to you have of not loving it. Even my mom says it's good.

How wonderful to read a novel that just electrifies and entertains at once. Terrific opening chapters on the true reality of what a gun shot actually does, and scenes of deep sea tuna fishing that would have enchanted Hemingway and certainly educated me. Cracker of a great story too, involving the Russian mob, old style gangsters, cross and double-cross, and revenge. Fine, polished narrative that makes it look so easy—the sign of a real pro. Grinder is a terrific read.

Ken Bruen, author of the Guards, winner of the 2003 Shamus Award

Mike Knowles has done a masterful piece of writing in Grinder. He catches the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings just right, and when his characters speak, we know exactly who they are. Wilson's return to Hamilton is fast, angry, smart, and very, very tough.

Thomas Perry, author of sixteen novels and winner of the 1983 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

Grinder

Coming September 2009




“You brought me back into this because you know what I am. I’m a grinder, I find out everything.”

Bullets squared everything. There was almost nothing left. Wilson left his old boss alive and his old life behind in exchange for a clean slate. He held up his end of the bargain and stayed off the grid. For two years Wilson had some peace until a man came calling. The man brought a gun — and a woman in his trunk. Over a thousand kilometres from home, Wilson learns that the city doesn’t let go and people don’t forget. The city is more than bricks; it’s a hammer, it’s blood, it’s a machine running on the backs of hard men and women and the hardest man there remembers Wilson. And now he wants him to come home.

Mobster Paolo Donati’s nephews are missing and the only suspects are his own men. Wilson is pulled back from his new life to work under the radar and find out who is responsible. Wilson is back to being what he was — a grinder. Now all bets are off and before he’s done, everyone will pay.

Darwin's Nightmare

Wilson spent his entire life under the radar. Few people knew who he was and even less knew how to find him. Only two people even knew what he really did. He worked jobs for one very bad man. Illegal jobs no one could ever know about. Wilson was invisible until the day he crossed the line and risked everything to save the last connection to humanity he had. One day changed everything. Wilson saved his friends and earned the hatred of a vengeful mob boss, a man who claimed he was Charles Darwin’s worst nightmare.

Wilson survived his transgression and went even deeper into the underworld of Hamilton becoming a ghost in the city – an unknown to almost everyone until he was paid back for his one good deed. It started with a simple job. Steal a bag from the airport and hand it off. No one said what was in the bag, and no one mentioned who the real owners were or what they would do to get it back. One bag sets into motion a violent chain of events from which no one will escape untouched. Wilson learns that no one forgets, no one gets away clean, and no good deed goes unpunished.

“Fans of Richard Stark and Andrew Vacchs will immediately recognize his cold-blooded pragmatism and brass-knuckled approach to problem solving...The action is straight, hard and fast and the characters are as sharply etched as this stuff gets...as clean and tight a debut as I’ve seen recently. The sure hand and utterly convincing tone displayed by the first time author, a school teacher, bodes well for not just him and Canadian crime writing, but for fans of hard-boiled fiction everywhere.”

by Kevin Burton Smith

Mystery Scene

“a sobering look at what happens when a tentative quest for morality comes up against the reality that everyone lives in the jungle – where life has no value.”

by Sarah Weinman

Quill & Quire

“The action is hard and raw and savage, and the characters are about as deliciously nasty as you’d expect. But what sets this book apart is Knowles’ considerable storytelling muscle...this is as clean and clenched a first novel as I’ve seen recently...Devotees of Andrew Vachss’ Burke and Richard Stark’s Parker and fans of hard-boiled fiction in general should take heed: there’s a new bad boy in town.”

January Magazine - Best Books of 2008: Crime Fiction

“A debut novel with an assured, strongly focused voice and hard-boiled writing that reminds you of Mickey Spillane. Darwin's Nightmare announces a new and serious mystery writer on the Canadian scene...The pace of the story kept me turning pages. The violence is raw, the energy of the writing is addictive, and the story reveals life as it unravels from the wrong side of the gun...Darwin's Nightmare is a debut novel not to be missed.”

by Don Graves

Hamilton Spectator

“Fans of Charlie Huston and Chuck Palahniuk will probably enjoy Darwin’s Nightmare.”

Sacramento Book Review

“Darwin's Nightmare is an angry charge into a bloody underworld free-for-all where a fighter's survival is earned by what he'll do after the bullet hits him. Mike Knowles is a strong new voice in crime fiction.”

Thomas Perry is an American mystery novelist, who received a 1983 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best First Novel. To date, Perry has published sixteen suspense novels.

"Authentic, sincere, and genuinely engrossing. Michael Knowles has a fresh, sharp voice, and that's just what crime fiction needs. I hope we see more very soon."

Victor Gischler, author of 4 hard-boiled crime novels. His debut novel GUN MONKEYS was nominated for the Edgar Award, and his novel SHOTGUN OPERA was an Anthony Award finalist.

"Relentless. Only the most ruthless survive. A fantastic new hard-boiled voice. Anti-hero Wilson is pitch-perfect."

John McFetridge, author of Dirty Sweet, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, and Swap.

“The evolution of the gangster novel takes a step forward with 'Darwin's Nightmare.' Mike Knowles' hardboiled spin on Hamilton's underworld is written with a tireless and controlled intensity.”

Allan Guthrie, author of: Two-Way Split, Kiss Her Goodbye (nominated for Edgar, Anthony and Gumshoe awards), Hard Man (winner of the inaugural Spinetingler award for Best Novel), Kill Clock, and Savage Night.