This gorgeously written, funny adventure tale will keep readers up finishing it while also quietly breaking their hearts with Alexis’s keen observations of people, kindness, and cruelty.’
Publishers Weekly, starred review
Even though the book is an old-fashioned quest yarn, Alexis’s immense talent gives it an archetypal patina, glossing characters with shades of honor and subtlety that might have been missed in lesser hands.’
Kirkus Reviews
[An] intellectual adventure yarn
Great fun.’
The Wall Street Journal
Alexis did not rest on his laurels after winning the Giller
The Hidden Keys brings to the forefront all the wit, grit, and talent we have come to expect from the reigning Canadian Fiction champ.’
Libraire Drawn & Quarterly Book of the Week on Largehearted Boy
A witty, punchy, loquacious novel
Fun, propulsive reading that really is about the hunt, not the treasure.’
Library Journal
The mystery itself does not disappoint, though the events that lead up to the reveal are as much of a gift as the endpoint itself. This unique adventure is a joyful and intelligent undertaking.’
Foreword Reviews
Alexis is a literary cartographer of the highest calibre and The Hidden Keys should be book-marked on everyone’s map.’
Hamilton Review of Books
Though Tancred contains multitudes, one of Alexis’s best tricks involves diverging from his hero’s point of view to introduce a whole host of peripheral figures
Nobody is a mere archetype in Alexis’s universe, and far from digressions (or generic concessions), these subplots suggest the humane, egalitarian sensibility of a writer who’s reluctant to simply instrumentalize his characters.’
Quill & Quire
Alexis shapes his mash-up of ancient tropes and ironic flicks into a wonderful story about fate and family, mainly by peopling it with characters who are simultaneously archetypes and believable individuals. And the puzzle is pretty good, too.’
Maclean’s
It is difficult to convey how gracefully Alexis is able to conjure such baroque minutia without slipping into mannered excess. Just as it is difficult to convey Alexis’s way of avoiding the trappings of genre while offering, in this case, all the essential pleasures of a crime novel: The Hidden Keys is somewhat akin to Elmore Leonard in its attention to idiosyncratic personal style and providing even minor players with active inner lives.’
The Globe and Mail
11/15/2016
Alexis, winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize for Fifteen Dogs, follows up with this witty, punchy, loquacious novel featuring an unexpected treasure hunt—and in fact inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. It opens with aging heiress Willow Azarian approaching suave and surprisingly sophisticated thief Tancred Palmieri in a dodgy bar called the Green Dolphin and befriending him so that she can persuade him to steal the memento mori (e.g., a framed poem, a painting of Nero) willed to her and her siblings by their outrageously wealthy father. She herself received a Japanese screen, and she's convinced that together these items will offer clues to something big their father has tucked away for them to find. Not that she expects or wants more money—they're all filthy rich—but as she explains, "I want to know what's hidden and I want to know why." A heroin addict, Willow is soon dead, but Tancred takes up the challenge—and the reader will, too. VERDICT Fun, propulsive reading that really is about the hunt, not the treasure.
2016-07-20
A smooth criminal is persuaded to investigate a complex riddle left as a strange inheritance to a junkie in Toronto.Prizewinning Canadian novelist Alexis (Fifteen Dogs, 2015, etc.) offers up a wry and intriguing adventure in this caper novel loosely inspired by Treasure Island. The book’s dashing young protagonist is an old soul at heart—Tancred Palmieri is an unabashed thief we first meet musing over the fate of a purloined diamond as he imbibes in The Green Dolphin, your traditional hive of villainy. At the bar, he’s approached by 50-something drug addict Willow Azarian, who spins a family fable. Her wealthy father, besides leaving millions in inheritance, left Willow and each of her siblings an iconic memento. These included a framed poem, a painting of the Emperor Nero, a bottle of liqueur, a reproduction of a famous Japanese silkscreen, and a model of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, a home in rural Pennsylvania. Willow asks the dashing thief to steal and investigate the mementos to see where they lead. Spoiler alert: Willow dies of her addictions, but Tancred decides to carry out her mission anyway: he may be a thief but his code won’t allow him to break promises. It’s a wonderfully strange premise and one that plays out well on the page. With the help of his “Sancho Panza,” Ollie, and a geriatric taxidermist named Alexander von Wurfel, Palmieri begins stealing and deciphering the clues left by the deceased tycoon. Complications arise when gang lord John Armberg muscles in on Palmieri’s quest, sending an albino thug named Error Colby and his clubfooted sidekick, Sigismund “Freud” Luxemburg, to track his progress. Hot on everyone’s tail is police detective Daniel Mandelshtam, a friend of Palmieri’s since childhood. Even though the book is an old-fashioned quest yarn, Alexis’ immense talent gives it an archetypal patina, glossing characters with shades of honor and subtlety that might have been missed in lesser hands.A wry and reflective literary puzzle about family, love, honor, and adventure.