LA Review of Books on KCRW
LA Noir
Mike Davis, in "City of Quartz," famously said that L.A. is made up of equal parts sunshine and noir. Here are three recent books squarely in the diverse tradition.
By Tom Lutz • • 3m ListenWalter Mosley is one of the most celebrated writers in the genre, and since 1990's
Devil in a Blue Dress, his Easy Rawlins books have been favorites. Easy is part of a sub-tradition of what we might call 'reluctant detectives.' He isn't a licensed PI, just a guy people turn to for help. Fans thought the series might be over when Easy drove off a cliff in
Blonde Faith in 2008, but he's back, in
Little Green, on the Sunset Strip, in the southern parts of town, and out by the beach during the flower-power 1960's.
Dan Fante's
Point Doom is a real thriller, with
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo-level violence and splatter, maybe even more. Many detectives in the genre are defrocked cops; Fante one-ups that and makes his protagonist, who bears a not-superficial resemblance to Fante himself, an ex-private investigator who has drunk his way out of his license. Now sober, he refuses to get pushed around, and lots of people try. (Fante's last book was a
memoir of his father, the legendary John Fante.)
Steph Cha is the newcomer, and her
Follow Me Home features a Korean-American heroine, Juniper Song, who has a Raymond Chandler fixation, a "What Would Philip Marlowe Do?" approach to life. For lovers of the city, this is a treat, with visits to a dozen different recognizable neighborhoods, across the ethnic enclaves and the enclaves of the rich, with a fun, spunky narrator with real depth, and a true noir plot: people are lousy, and then they disappoint you -- except maybe Cha and Song.
