Zero Avenue

I obviously missed something that many readers found in this book as I was not overly thrilled by the story. Set in the late 1970's Vancouver punk scene, the book featured a struggling singer and what felt like a bunch of amateur drug dealers and crooks. I felt like the book pushed itself to be cool with the continuing dropping of band and club names. All this did was increase the book's word count and make me think of the Cake (not a punk band) lyrics: "proves you were there, that you heard of them first." It had nothing to do with the story and was a bit distracting in spots. The crimes felt more sad and inevitable instead of part of some grand scheme. Though I expect that was the actual point of the book. Along with that, I did like the somewhat ironic ending.

Synopsis/blurb….

"If you like your crime hard and fast, Kalteis is for you." - The Globe and Mail

Set to the cranking beat and amphetamine buzz of Vancouver's early punk scene, Zero Avenue follows Frankie Del Rey, a talented and rising punk star who runs just enough dope on the side to pay the bills and keep her band, Waves of Nausea, together. The trouble is she's running it for Marty Sayles, a powerful drug dealer who controls the Eastside with a fist.

When Frankie strikes up a relationship with Johnny Falco, the owner of one of the only Vancouver clubs willing to give punk a chance, she finds out he's having his own money problems just keeping Falco's Nest open. Desperate to keep his club, Johnny raids one of the pot fields Marty Sayles has growing out past Surrey, along Zero Avenue on the U.S. border. He gets away with a pickup load and pays back everybody he owes. Arnie Binz, bass player for Waves of Nausea, finds out about it and decides that was easy enough. But he gets caught by Marty's crew.

Johnny and Frankie set out to find the missing Arnie, but Marty Sayles is pissed and looking for who ripped off his other field - a trail that leads to Johnny and Frankie.

Another absolute belter from Canadian author Dietrich Kalteis. Hands up, I’ll confess I’m a massive fan. This is the fourth of his five published books that I’ve read and I’d be happy to pick any of them up and blast through them again.

Zero Avenue has a real energy and vibrancy that leaps from the pages. Johnny Falco runs a struggling bar. Despite the packed crowds for his music nights, the figures don’t add up. Outgoings exceed income and he’s slowly sinking. Owing rent to Marty Sayles, a local businessman and drug dealer is problematic, especially as he has a new lieutenant, Zeke Chamas who’s keen to enhance his position in the Sayles organisation. Intimidation and the breaking of a few heads the way to go.

Frankie Del Rey is well into her music. Guitarist and lead vocalist with Waves of Nausea, she’ll run drugs for Sayles if it helps her band stay in the game, with the financing of an EP her immediate goal. She’s not sure she want to go as far as sleeping with sleazeball Marty to keep the gig as a delivery girl, but it’s difficult keeping him at arm’s length.

A falling out with Marty - who wouldn’t be annoyed at him copping some oral in Falco’s dingy bog (think Trainspotting for a comparison) when they were set on a dinner date - jeopardises her second job. With Johnny privy to some information on where Sayles has one of his cannabis growing fields, a solution may be at hand. Raid the field, steal the drugs, sell them and buy some time paying Marty back with the cash gained from his own crop. Simple.

Plenty of attitude on show all-round, fantastic setting with the punk-rock back-drop, a simple crime with consequences for all involved. And a touch of romance.

I don’t think there was a dull sentence or paragraph in the book, pedal to metal, a flat-out adrenaline fuelled read. I could hear the pounding music in my head as I raced through it. I loved the characters, I loved the setting, Vancouver and the late 70s. It reminded me of my youth – I loved the music, but never embraced the fashion – too much of a wimp to rebel I guess. Great dialogue and humour.

Ticks in every box.

5 from 5

Dietrich Kalteis has his website here. He’s on Facebook here and Twitter - @dietrichkalteis

Zero Avenue is released tomorrow - buy it!

His other works are
Ride the Lightning thoughts here
The Deadbeat Club thoughts here
Triggerfish thoughts here
House of Blazes - unread as yet.

Read in September, 2017
Published – 2017
Page count – 236
Source – review copy from ECW Press (thanks Susannah) (NET GALLEY also)

Format – paperback ARC

It took me way too long to get to Dietrich Kalteis’ Zero Avenue (ECW Press) but I finally got here and I’m quite happy for that. Kalteis’ book is set in Vancouver’s punk scene in October 197 and the first thing one notices is Kalteis’ use of language, raw and unfiltered. The writing like the characters is unapologetic and doesn’t give a shit whether you get it or not: punk music, punk characters, punk writing. I was loving it immediately.

Dietrich Kalteis’ Zero Avenue opens with Frankie Del Ray heading into a Johnny Falco’s Nest, a punk bar down the street from the famed Smiling Buddha. Frankie has a lot on her mind: her band, trying to make a recod, running drugs across the border for Marty Sayles, the east-side drug lord, and a date with said drug lord later that night. The first few pages are full of Vancouver rock and roll lore from Jimi Hendrix to D.O.A as well as bringing the punk scene to life. After these few pages of staccato exposition, things blow up real fast.

A lone bulb hung from the center of the room, a dead fluorescent tube horizontal over the sink, two toilets, only one with an enclosed stall, a urinal and a plugged-up sink, soapy brown scum floating in it. Toilet paper unfurled like crime scene tape across the floor. Graffiti all over — the voice of the people.

Frankie’s eyes adjusted to the dim, a guy in a sport jacketstood pressed against the wall, his head tipped back, Adam’s apple bobbing, the guy groaning over the pounding music. A girl on her knees, giving him the business.

Money’s tight all around and Sayles hires Zeke Chamas to begin to run his drug business a bit tougher than before. Kalteis stumbled once when he had a character pay for information instead of getting it free, but the rest of the book read like sweaty power chords screaming with adrenaline and filled with characters named Stain, Monk, and Sticky. Kalteis’ Zero Avenue is a furious rush of drugs, crimes, and punk music. I’ll miss this book, but I’m listening to my old records again.