Buffalo Jump

Jonah Geller #1

by Howard Shrier

Toronto investigator Jonah Geller is at a low point in his life. A careless mistake on his last case left him with a bullet in his arm, a busted relationship and a spot in his boss's doghouse. Then he comes home to find notorious contract killer Dante Ryan in his apartment — not to kill him for butting into mob business, as Jonah fears, but to plead for Jonah's help.

Ryan has been ordered to wipe out an entire Toronto family, including a five-year-old boy. With a son of his own that age, Ryan can't bring himself to do it. He challenges Jonah to find out who ordered the hit. With help from his friend Jenn, Jonah investigates the boy's father — a pharmacist who seems to lead a good life — and soon finds himself ducking bullets and dodging blades from all directions. When the case takes Jonah and Ryan over the river to Buffalo, where good clean Canadian pills are worth their weight in gold, their unseen enemies move in for the kill.

Genres: Mystery, Canada, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Thriller

253 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2008

About the author

Award-winning author Howard Shrier was born and raised in Montreal, where he earned an Honours Degree in Journalism and Creative Writing at Concordia University. Since then he has worked in a wide variety of media, including print, magazine and radio journalism, theatre and television, sketch comedy and improv. He has also been a senior communications advisor to government agencies. He now lives in Toronto with his wife and their two sons and teaches writing at University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies.

Series:
* Jonah Geller

Awards:
Arthur Ellis Award
◊ Best First Novel (2009): Buffalo Jump
◊ Best Novel (2010): High Chicago

Nominations:

Arthur Ellis Award, Best Novel of 2013: Miss Montreal

Bony Blithe Award, Best Humourous Mystery of 2013: Miss Montreal

Reviews

[Maddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

PROTAGONIST: Jonah Geller, PI
SETTING: Toronto and Buffalo
SERIES: #1
RATING: 3.5
WHY: Jonah Geller is an investigator for a firm in Toronto. He is approached at home by a contract killer named Dante Ryan, who wants his help. Ryan has a contract to kill an entire family but doesn't have the stomach to kill a young boy. In fact, he wants to get out of the game entirely to be with his own family. He asks Geller to find out who ordered the hit. There's a connection to pharmaceutical smuggling to the US with a look at the contrasts between US and Canadian law that make this lucrative. Jonah is witty and has an interesting background in the Israeli military, but a bit overburdened by his Jewishness. A solid first book that shows potential.

[Kendra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Howard Shrier jumps into the hard-boiled detective mystery scene with a well-plotted story featuring PI Jonah Geller, who likes to strike out on his own to solve crimes and isn't afraid of rustling the feathers of a few gangsters along the way. Jonah is a likeable and believable character who has a rich background (his Jewish heritage and experiences in the Israeli army) but has hit a few bumps in life, particularly a recent breakup and an on-the-job accident. Jonah is certainly a man's man and I can see male readers identifying with him a lot more easily than female readers. I know my husband really enjoyed the action scenes as well.

My favourite thing about this book was the setting. I live in Toronto very close to Jonah's apartment, so it was pretty neat riding on the 504 Streetcar to work reading about Jonah doing the same thing. Howard Shrier makes great use of the city as a setting, moving from downtown, to East York to North York and back again. I'm not going to give away more than that, but if you live in Toronto or ever have, this book certainly will draw on your love of the city.

Finally, I can recommend this book and I'm planning to read number two: High Chicago!

[Toni Osborne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book won the Arthur Ellis Award for excellence in crime fiction for best first novel in 2008 and is at the top of my list for being one of the best and original “private eye” mysteries I have read in a long time. Once past the few first chapters which were full of unnecessary explanatory baggage the pages roared on with plot twists and exciting suspense with lots of intrigue. The storyline has an interesting mix of noir, politics and humour. To add depth and richness to the narration the author has explored his protagonist Jewishness throughout the mystery and given him a strong and individual voice with a wry sense of humour. The players have great chemistry for an unlikely mitch match pair and the secondary ones have their own personality that are equality well-developed. Now that Toronto has a new Jewish detective who is not a laidback kind of sleuth we have come across in other crime fiction we will have a very captivating time with him in the subsequent instalments.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an absolute hoot! Don't get me wrong, it's a serious book and deals with serious issues, but the author has given his characters true witty dialogue and interesting problems. Now, if I had this kind of baggage, I'd be a wreck, but Jonah Geller's backstory is plausible and makes for very interesting reading.
I found myself rooting for Jonah and hoping he would survive without too many more injuries, but really - what can you expect from a seemingly self-destructive person who associates (and helps) a contract killer who wants to get out of a hit? And the conversations between Jonah and Dante Ryan made me laugh out loud.
Well done Howard Shrier, I look forward to tracking down the next in the series.

[Brenda Chapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is tight with witty dialogue and a fast-paced plot. The Toronto setting is nicely captured as is Jonah Geller's Jewish heritage. The premise of a PI working with a hit man to save a family is original, the characters are layered and skillfully portrayed, and the suspense builds throughout. A well written page-turner.

[Bruce Retallack · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book a while ago, and enjoyed it for a number of reasons, most particularly the tightly crafted plotline. Jonah Geller, our intrepid PI hero, discovers disconnected pieces of the puzzle, but is only able to tie it all together at the the end. The milieu of cross-border trafficking in prescription drugs was very topical as well. And of course, as a Torontonian myself, I thoroughly enjoyed the setting. In fact, what brought me back to the series was my discovery that there are virtually no other Toronto-based procedural mysteries. This is a bit odd, since I can find quite a number of Canadian books set in Ottawa, or Montreal, or the Maritimes, or the west coast.
At any rate, I did reread and found I still enjoyed the same thigs as before. Plus, I should add, the slowly developed friendship between Geller and Dante Ryan, the Irish-Italian hitman. It almost strains credulity, but Shrier takes his time to develop it so that it ends up feeling quite reasonable.
Two things did and do bug me a bit. First is the regularly repeated reminder that Geller is Jewish, and loves Israel and Jewish traditions and Jewish cooking and Jewish women, etc. I found myself saying 'enough already' by the middle of the story. That problem is exacerbated since my second reading took place in the middle of the latest Israeli-Palestinian war, which makes it feel (unfairly) as a kind of political apologia for Israel.
My second problem is the frequency and lovingly described amount of violence involved. Again, nothing wrong with any given bit of it, but it does get to be a bit too much for my taste.
Those, to be fair, are quibbles. I still really like the book and still give it 4 stars.

[Phoenix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent 1st novel in a mock Dashiel Hammet style

I love a good mystery. Howard Shrier's first person film noire approach to private investigator Jonah Geller was funny, quick paced and quite entertaining. Like the previous reviewer I also am from Toronto - the descriptions were vivid enough for me to want to pass up hiking the Don Valley, at least when its raining, and the scenes describing sadistic killer Ricky the Clip were perhaps too disturbing. Dante Ryan was a great character as was French Canadian Frannie Paradis and Jenn. What I did find a bit unsatisfactory was the rather flat character of Jonah's boss Clint, yet characters swiftly drawn like Kate Hollinger show that the author has great potential. I also preferred the mystery of Jonah's past to the actual revelation. The scenario itself, trafficking in prescription drugs between Canada and the United States was quite believable and well laid out.

The book also sets up a number of characters both major and minor for a return visit. Shrier has at least a second novel in him and I look forward to reading it. Recommended.

[Art · Rating 4 out of 5]

Toronto investigator Jonah Geller is recovering from a gunshot and an undercover operation that went dreadfully wrong, sitting on the sidelines of his detective agency, helping out with an investigation of a nursing home.

An elderly resident of the home has died and her relatives think she wasn't being given all of her medications.

The fast-paced story jumps between Toronto and Buffalo, although painting fairly bleak pictures of both cities.

it's a wild ride and leaves me wanting to know more about Geller.

[Elaine Tucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable read. An elderly lady in a complete care facility passes away sooner than expected. The son does some investigating with the help of an investigation business. It was discovered that she was not getting the correct dosage of prescriptions. This is the beginning of a very good story about prescription drugs and were they go.

[Elizabeth Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's humour in this! It's set in a city I grew up in! Nothing like being able to actually "find my way around" in a story like this. And yes I've also crossed the US/CDN border there, so really cool. Beyond that, it's a really well written "I couldn't put it down" book. Must read. It's a good book to challenge yourself with a different genre of book.

[Lynda Creed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

[Devon · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun and engaging read. Enjoyed the Canadian and timely theme of prescription pills and organized crime.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good police procedural style book. Loved the local references for all the Toronto and Buffalo locations.

[anonymousreader]

to-read

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The best words I can come up with to describe this story are: raw, gritty and intense. While it isn't a great fit for my interests in books, if you like a more aggressive style of murder/suspense story, it may be right for you. If you think you'd like Sam Spade written with a 2000's permissibility of language and plot, this could be your book.

Jonah Geller is a private investigator in Toronto who can't seem to stay out of trouble. He's barely recovered from a gunshot wound in the course of his previous case, and now a hit man has shown up in his apartment.

Except, he's not there to kill Jonah, but to ask for HIS help. He's been hired to kill an entire family, including a little boy the same age as his own son. He doesn't want to do the job, but the only way out is to find out who ordered the hit and get him to cancel it. But to do that he needs Jonah's help as an investigator.

The book is set mostly in Toronto, with some trips over to Buffalo, New York, and initally, I thought I would really enjoy that as books are rarely set in my home city. But because of the subject matter, the Toronto portrayed in this story is a lot dirtier, meaner and more violent than I find it to be in real life. Maybe I just don't see all the grit and rawness that was in the story, or, maybe [hopefully!] the author, Howard Shrier, just amped it up to appropriately fit the story. Either way, it kind of made me sad and depressed to see my city - which I think is just the BEST place anywhere - shown as so angry and violent.

I also had trouble with just how raw and gritty the plot was. There is a lot of very graphic violence in this book, and it was a bit too intense for my taste. That's not to say this wasn't a great story, because it was, or it didn't have great, well-written characters, because it absolutely does. I guess I'm just too wimpy for a more masculine approach to murder/action/suspense stories, which is how this book came across to me. But there is plenty of action, and nail-biting suspense.

The violence and the crudeness of language, and even the brief sex scenes the book includes were just too aggressive for me. I feel like they were appropriate to the story and right for what the author was trying to do with his plot, so I really don't want to even suggest that this is not a good book - it IS! It just wasn't the right book for my personal sensibilities.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

FLABBY

Buffalo Jump introduces the reader to Jonah Geller, a PI in Toronto – working for a security firm – who has an eclectic, but useful past for his new profession – Israeli military and karate instructor. Jonah is nursing physical wounds – he was shot in his previous botched job; emotional hurt – his girlfriend has just left him; and psychological scars – his dream-world haunted by his time in the military. Just to add to the misery – Jonah’s car won’t start and he’s forced to take public transportation.

At the office Jonah’s in the proverbial doghouse due to his recent screw-up and stuck doing grunt work on a rest home case for one of his “peers” – a hedonist stuck in adolescence. And to spice things up, Jonah is “approached” by a mobbed-up hit man – whom he met during his screw-up - to work a “case off the books”. This an offer he can’t refuse. To put it mildly our hero is not having a good day.

The good news here is that Jonah’s cases – both on and off the books – and his investigations are intriguing. And although the characters involved are pretty much one-dimensional – particularly the “honor-bound” hit man, Jonah’s sex-crazed office mate and the rest home’s diabolical doctor – there’s enough “story” here to overlook that – or at least wade through these shortcomings.

Unfortunately the book bogged down for this reader with the all too frequent “in-between scenes” – the exercise regimens, phone calls from Mother Geller, our hero’s continual “nightmares”, the sexual escapades of Jonah’s office-mate and Jonah’s numerous physical encounters with bad guys – the latter chronicled in martial arts detail. In short there’s a pretty good 225 page mystery novel here swamped in an almost 370 page narrative.

[Alison Hardtmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good crime novel is one that knows when to follow the rules of the genre and when to play with them. This is a hard-boiled PI tale that knows the rules and breaks them with style. Jonah Geller works for a large detective agency where he was, until recently, a rising star. A mistake has left him with the scar and pain from a bullet wound and a reduction in his duties to filing paper and running errands for other PIs. Geller is both the classic PI, living alone, a little lonely, with a quick mouth and temper as well as an extensive knowledge of karate; he also deviates from the mold, refusing to carry a weapon and nagged by his mother, who would just like him to settle down, like his brother.

Geller's co-worker begins by having him type up his notes, but then goes on to having Geller look in on a nursing home, asking questions in connection with a case involving the possible under-medication of a resident. Geller is also paid a visit by a member of the crime organization that shot him earlier. Ryan is a hit man with a problem. He's been asked to kill an entire family. The problem is that the son is the same age as Ryan's own son and he finds that he just can't do it. His solution is to "ask" Geller to find out who ordered the hit, so that Ryan can convince him to change his mind.

The result is an entertaining, fast-paced caper featuring an unlikely partnership. Geller's an enjoyable guy to spend time with and Howard Shrier's writing never gets in the way. There's also a vivid picture of Toronto, albeit a gritty one filled with crime and people on the edge of getting by.

[Heather Pearson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I borrowed this book from my library for my husband to read and ended up reading myself it instead.

It is an unusual PI story where Dante Ryan, a mob hitman, turns to P.I. Jonah Geller to help him avoid carrying out a killing he's been contracted to do.

Jonah then gets side tracked when helping a co-worker with another investigation, or does he. I can't reveal any more of the story, just that it keeps twisting away from where I thought it was heading. I will say that the bad guys were undertaking a devious plan that was totally heartless.

I enjoyed this debut novel by Canadian author Howard Shrier. A few times, I felt that he was writing for a male audience, though I decided to overlook those ill worded phrases and continue reading. I'm glad that I did.

#IndigoEmployee

[Rob Kitchin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buffalo Jump is the first book in the Toronto-based Jonah Geller private investigator series. For me it was a book of two halves. The first half was quite pedestrian and I felt little affinity for the tale or the characters. About halfway through, however, the story seemed to shift register and became more engaging and compelling. In part, I think, this was because Geller became more multidimensional as chunks of his back story were divulged (he’s the usual flawed, damaged, independent PI, but has enough twists that he doesn’t neatly fit the mould), his relationship to the hitman, Dante Ryan, developed through a nice set of interchanges, and all the various plot strands started to be woven together into a clearer tapestry. Indeed, the plot focus on the illegal cross-border trade in prescription medicines provided a nice hook. The denouement seemed a little rushed, but nicely tied off the tale. Overall, a decent, if a little uneven, read that introduces an engaging lead character that I’d be happy to spend more time reading about.

[Amy Paget · Rating 3 out of 5]

Toronto investigator Jonah Geller is at a low point in his life. A careless mistake on his last case left him with a bullet in his arm, a busted relationship and a spot in his boss's doghouse. Then he comes home to find notorious contract killer Dante Ryan in his apartment - not to kill him for butting into mob business, as Jonah fears, but to plead for Jonah's help. -- NovelistPlus. I thoroughly enjoyed the setting of this novel, having lived in Toronto for several years. The characterization is quirky...especially that of the family loving contract killer, Dante Ryan. Enjoyable.

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

After languishing on my shelf for over five years, I finally picked up this book and am glad I did so. The first novel in the Jonah Geller series, this was a modern day hard-boiled PI sort of novel. Set in Toronto it delves into the pharmaceutical world and the mob. It started off a bit uneven, but once the author was able to establish the characters and eventually get to revealing their back stories it picked up.

[Rodger Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first Howard Shrier Novel that I read and I quickly followed it with the next three about investigator Howard Geller a Toronto PI. I love the conceit of the Agency's name... World Repairs. I love that he hooks up with a criminal (in the Elvis Costello - Joe Pike mould). The story rattles along nicely. The descriptions of Toronto and Chicago are spot on and really set the scene beautifully. This is a "Goodread".

[Hella Comat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not only written by a Canadian author, but set in Toronto and a bit in Buffalo, this is a crime mystery centred around a main character who works as an investigator. The plot involves lots of action, a contract killer, smuggling prescription drugs over the border, and underworld factions competing for power. Lots of fun, and well written. This is a first novel, and I agree with Linwood Barclay who wrote that he's looking forward to Howard Shrier's next book.

[Jo-anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a new kid on the block for me; Howard Shrier's private investigator Jonah Geller. I was immediately captivated by the main character and the story line. Other features that added to my enjoyment; the Toronto setting, the Jewish connection, humour despite the darkness of murder, strong supporting characters. I'm really looking forward to getting to know Jonah Geller better in further books.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would probably rather give this book 3.5 stars. It's a good story, a page-turner even, topical subject (especially 2-3 years ago - sales of Canadian prescription drugs to Americans), a Toronto setting with lots of place names and a likeable protagonist. But it is a story about the mob with a fair amount of violence and dead bodies. But there is humour too. First in a new series.

[Teena in Toronto · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd read Shrier's second Jonah book and liked it so I wanted to go back and read the first one.

I enjoyed this book ... I like mysteries and there aren't a lot that are based in Canada or Toronto.

I found, though, that there were a lot of characters and it was hard to keep everyone straight.

I like Jonah and I hope Shier continues with the series.

[Jac Revival · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great read - not only does Howard Shrier lather in plenty of action he does so with a generous dollop of splendid humour. Stir in some locations and references that many Canadians should be familiar with and - voila - a novel you'll find difficult to put down. (Which was exactly my problem - ended up with a wee shortage of sleep.)

And now - on to source Shrier's other work!

[Brian Leclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

I accidentally stumbled across this book in the library... and I'm very glad that I did! Howard Shrier has created an eccentric and engaging lead character in Toronto investigator Jonah Geller, and we follow Jonah on a very intriguing cross-border shopping story. I can't wait to read the next adventure!

[Dennis Osborne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the author's first book and it won an award for best mystery from a first time author. The book is mainly based in Toronto and it's great to relate to so many recognizable landmarks. The plot and characters are interesting , with the author is exhibiting a good sense of humour. Definetly will look for more books from this author.