This double edition of the Joe Grundy Mystery series presents Marc Strange’s Sucker Punch and Body Blows.

Sucker Punch: Joe Grundy is an ex-heavyweight boxer whose main claim to fame was that he got knocked out by champ Evander Holyfield. Now he’s chief of security for a posh old hotel, the Lord Douglas, in downtown Vancouver, and life is pretty good. But then a young neo-hippie inherits more than half a billion dollars and decides to give it all away. As soon as the kid checks into the Lord Douglas with the intention of holding a press conference to announce the scheme, Joe knows big trouble is headed his way, especially when the kid winds up dead.
Grundy sets out to discover who murdered the would-be philanthropist only to collide with suspects and sucker punches around every corner. Joe had some pretty tough battles during his days in the ring, but this time the stakes are higher, the opponents are lethal, and the final count could be fatal.

Body Blows: Ex-boxer Joe Grundy is embroiled in the intrigues of his own boss, millionaire Leo Alexander, the owner of Vancouver’s Lord Douglas Hotel. Somebody has murdered Leo’s live-in servant and not-so-secret lover, and Grundy has to get to the bottom of the incident in order to clear the man he’s forged a bond with since first coming to work for him as security for the hotel. But Leo’s past serves up more surprises than Grundy bargained for.
It seems Leo has had a life full of death, jilted mistresses, spurned spouses, sharp business deals, and explosive relationships with estranged children. Another corpse pops up, Leo is arrested and jailed, and Grundy takes more hits to his body and psyche than perhaps even he can handle.
Thoughts of real and imagined death are stalking the corridors of the Lord Douglas, and Joe Grundy has to keep swinging to stay alive and remain sane.

Marc Strange is a writer and actor. He was co-creator of The Beachcombers (with L.S. Strange) and between 1972 and 1990 wrote, directed, and/or story-edited over seventy episodes. Strange is the author of Follow Me Down (ECW Press, 2010), Sucker Punch (Dundurn, 2007), which was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel and Body Blows (Dundurn, 2009), winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Paperback Original. He lives in Toronto.

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• Winner, Edgar Allan Poe Award for best original paperback (Body Blows)
• Short-listed, Arthur Ellis Award for best first mystery novel (Sucker Punch)

...a subtle blend of hardboiled style and noir sensibility in a satisfying who-done-it. Author Strange skillfully tangles webs of failure and deceit behind the sunny superficiality of familiar Canadian character types, giving them credible personalities. I'm planning a trip to my favourite bookseller for a copy of Sucker Punch, first of the Joe Grundy series.

The plot of Body Blows zips along as smoothly and cleverly as Marc Strange's first Joe Grundy novel, Sucker Punch...but the real charm of what's turning into a series is Joe Grundy himself, a quasi-tough guy who's smart, loyal, shrewd but easy-going, and blessedly witty-a pleasure to hang out with for a few hours inside a book.