Waiting for LeClerc - Paperback

by Vern Smith (Author)

Detective Alex Johnson says being on a stakeout is all about waiting, that absolutely nothing happens ninety-nine percent of the time. His partner, Cecil Bolan, insists that's a myth, that something of note is always going down. And, in this instance anyway, young Cecil would be correct. For while this two-tone fraud team sits inside an unmarked van poised to record a cash-for-drugs deal connected to a local money-laundering scheme, the main subject of their sting is secretly watching and listening from his girlfriend's balcony across the street.

Set in a Toronto parking lot, over three hours on the first anniversary of 9/11, Waiting for LeClerc revolves around paranoia, religion, downtown freaks, open public drug use, petty distractions, false perceptions, fashion felonies, Jheri curls, iPod girls, yellow-jacket season, and a Sharon Stone look-alike, yes. But it's also about how early access to D.I.Y. spy gear-however crude, unreliable, and campy-turns the watchers into the watched, leading to an explosive finale in a supposedly controlled space where nothing much is supposed to happen in the first place. Mostly, it documents the roots of how we came to be a surveillance society, along with the inevitable consequences of the same.