This one won the St. Martin's prize for Best First Private Eye Novel--or something like that. It is a good story, but...
Les Roberts got off to a good start with this story, and he went on to write several more in the series, but he didn't really hit his stride until he started the Milan Jacovich series, set in Cleveland. If you want his GOOD stuff, read those, starting with Pepper Pike.
Now, about this book. While I enjoyed it, I had some real complaints. There's one sex scene, for instance, which is way over the top for me. I am also a bit put off by Saxon's (he's the main character, an out-of-work actor making a living as a PI) immediate adolescent worship of a girl he meets. It's more than love at first sight; it's adoration, worship, teen-age wet dream stuff. Ugh.
Another cavil is the physical violence--poor Saxon gets beat up unmercifully several times with too much detail. He recovers fairly quickly, of course, and soldiers on. It's rather like Mr. Roberts knew the formula for a hard-boiled PI book and made sure he got the beatings and the hot, hot sex scene in, whether they were needed or not. In his later work, everything that happens is for a reason other than the requirements of the formula for a PI novel.
The plot itself is pretty clever, and I enjoyed the unfolding of the layers of clues.
So, it's interesting. If you're looking for cleverly disguised hot sex stuff (although it's only two pages), if you like hard-boiled PI stuff no matter what, and if you're interested in seeing the maturation and development of a good writer from his earliest work, get this book.
Les Roberts got off to a good start with this story, and he went on to write several more in the series, but he didn't really hit his stride until he started the Milan Jacovich series, set in Cleveland. If you want his GOOD stuff, read those, starting with Pepper Pike.
Now, about this book. While I enjoyed it, I had some real complaints. There's one sex scene, for instance, which is way over the top for me. I am also a bit put off by Saxon's (he's the main character, an out-of-work actor making a living as a PI) immediate adolescent worship of a girl he meets. It's more than love at first sight; it's adoration, worship, teen-age wet dream stuff. Ugh.
Another cavil is the physical violence--poor Saxon gets beat up unmercifully several times with too much detail. He recovers fairly quickly, of course, and soldiers on. It's rather like Mr. Roberts knew the formula for a hard-boiled PI book and made sure he got the beatings and the hot, hot sex scene in, whether they were needed or not. In his later work, everything that happens is for a reason other than the requirements of the formula for a PI novel.
The plot itself is pretty clever, and I enjoyed the unfolding of the layers of clues.
So, it's interesting. If you're looking for cleverly disguised hot sex stuff (although it's only two pages), if you like hard-boiled PI stuff no matter what, and if you're interested in seeing the maturation and development of a good writer from his earliest work, get this book.
