Mired in a pit of depression so deep that he doubts he'll ever pull himself out, Matt Hoveling finds himself pushed up against the farthest edge of the North American continent possible, where a group of marginalised Vancouverites take him in as one of their own as they work to improve their own lives and the city around them. (345 pages)

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"What is wrong with you people?" Naz demanded to know. "How the hell did you win the Cold War? Cops like that are like shark's teeth. Break one off and another will just grow in its place. Stop acting like Rocky and Bullwinkle. Let Natasha – Where is my Boris? Why don't I have a Boris? – do the thinking for you. The solution is simple; you have a disappeared woman you want back. This Jewish Effie. You have a bad cop you want disappeared. The so-called Detective Dick. The answer is simple. Switch them. Disappear the cop, bring back Effie. Paint the town black."

"What do you mean, 'Paint the town black?'"

"Simple. I'm from Kazakhstan. Bad men have been making people disappear into Kazakhstan since Alexander Nevsky and his grandson, Ivan Kalita – 'little moneybags' — bribed the Mongols' Golden Horde to leave Moscow alone and focus on rape, pillage and beheadings in Kazakhstan.

"Ivan the Terrible, Vasily the Dark, Stalin: they all sent their problems to disappear and die in Kazakhstan. There's only one solution when shits like your cop stain society so badly they can't be erased. You can never make it pure and white again. But that doesn't mean you can't do anything to start over. All you have to do is start from the other direction. Paint the whole thing black. You can paint over black just as well as you can paint over white."