The Gimmickâ©

" Kafka meets Sherwood Anderson: the nonstop parade of quirky characters . . . are the strong point of Smith’s writing. Linkages in his created world– which appears uncomfortably similar to our own."  – New Pop Lit

“Vern Smith’s ‘The Gimmick’ is about a hard-nosed cop, a bombshell in a belly shirt, and a bank machine card scam. It’s a complex and intense story, and who can resist the brilliant opening?” – Philip Alexander, Front & Centre Magazine

“Smith’s tale of not-so-small-time crooks with a knack for draining other people’s bank accounts and the bumbling cops on their tails (one of whom is among the crooks' victims) is a flat-out riot. Punchy dialogue moves the story. Humorous human characters bring it life. The plot is solid. Smith sets the bar high.” – Matthew Firth, The Ottawa (X)Press

“Wilderness meets the city in ‘The Great Salmon Hunt,’ Vern Smith’s delightful, wicked tall tale. Men fish for monster-size salmon on Lake Ontario while in the distance, ‘The city core, the SkyDome, the CN Tower, and the Gardiner Expressway were enveloped in a green plume of smog, as if a lime rainbow had wrapped itself around downtown.’ In Concrete Forest, the city is wilderness.” – Zsuzsi Gartner, Quill & Quire

“Reading Vern Smith is to be reminded that urban America is more than the sum of its con jobs; it is a texture built of rips and stitches, a circus tent under which some of its wackiest animators hold forth—from Phyllis Diller to Carl Stalling, from Erich Sokol to Ishmael Reed. . . .  electric, eccentric, extracellular madness.” – Michael Turner, author of Hard Core Logo