JUNE 2013 - AudioFile
Narrator Carol Monda is terrific in this second Claire DeWitt detective story. Her deep voice manages the detached, no-nonsense affect of Jack Webb in the old “Dragnet” TV series while still making the listener care about Claire. Claire is working on two cases. Her former lover, Paul, has been murdered in what appears to be a botched robbery, and she and her assistant, Claude, are investigating the disappearance of valuable miniature horses. Monda does everything right. Her men sound masculine. Women sound like women. And when she quotes Jacques Silette, Claire’s detecting mentor, Monda’s French accent is convincing. Flashbacks and nightmares flesh out Claire’s backstory, and, as she becomes increasingly dependent on cocaine, Monda keeps a tight grip on a life flying out of control. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
Gran succumbs to sophomore slump in her second Claire DeWitt mystery (after 2011’s Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead). An atypical PI who would be at home in a Hunter Thompson story, the sarcastic Claire relies on her dreams, mind-enhancing drugs, a computer-hacker assistant, and her professional bible, Détection by French detective Jacques Silette, to solve crimes. Claire has moved to San Francisco, where she’s caught up in the murder of her old boyfriend, Paul Casablancas, in what appears to be a botched robbery. She follows clues about Paul’s murder and comforts his rock-musician widow, Lydia Nunez, while investigating miniature horse thefts and while looking into the disappearance of an old friend who vanished during the 1980s in Manhattan’s East Village. Rehashed plot points, wearisome characters (Claire’s manic personality can grate), and a rushed denouement make this a lesser effort from a talented author. Agent: Barney Karpfinger, the Karpfinger Agency. (June)
From the Publisher
Praise for Sara Gran and Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway
"The most interesting private eye I’ve encountered since Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander…A fascinating read." —Washington Post
"A fresh, fully realized noir world…The world-weary hipster voice and the absurdist perspective of Claire DeWitt and The Bohemian Highway are what really hold a susceptible reader spellbound. Think of the noir-inflected novels of Paul Auster or even the labyrinthine stories of Jorge Luis Borges. Gran's narrative is an intricate one…[An] introspective and, yes, poetic mystery adventure." —NPR’s Fresh Air
"Claire's quest to avenge Paul is compelling, but her insistence on uncovering the mystery of her own self-destruction is what makes this book not just a compelling mystery, but a novel." —O, the Oprah Magazine
"There's absolutely nothing predictable about either the multilayered investigation—cloaked in references to Indian scriptures, Thomas Merton, and cheesy 1980s TV mysteries—or DeWitt herself, who charms despite her fraying life. A " —Entertainment Weekly
"There's a long and distinguished line of famous women in mystery fiction. I have a new favorite female sleuth to add to the list, Claire DeWitt." —CNN.com
"Claire, though withdrawn and difficult, is deeply empathetic…Gran’s building something here, something bigger and better than a mere series. She’s building a labyrinthine world and filling it out completely, and I’m just happy to be along for the ride." —Los Angeles Review of Books
"The [Claire DeWitt] stories are wise, chilling, insightful and reeking with despair—and yet so beautifully written in an original, quirky style that it is difficult to resist them." —Bruce DeSilva, Associated Press
"The first fresh literary voice I’ve heard in years. Sara Gran has pulled the traditional female sleuth into the twenty-first century." —Sue Grafton
"Reminds me why I fell in love with the genre." —Laura Lippman
"Claire, or another PI much like her, might have been inevitable—or maybe it just takes a writer as good as Sara Gran to make her seem that way…It’s well worth following Claire wherever she decides to look." —Salon.com
"Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway, with its snappy prose and San Francisco setting, is both an homage to hard-boiled detective novels in the tradition of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and at the same time a brash reboot of the genre for the 21st century…Sara Gran has given the hard-boiled detective a good, hard hipster twist, creating a character with a savagely vigilant mind and a black heart always on the verge of breaking." —The Millions
"Gran writes in that hard-boiled staccato style of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler…It works brilliantly and often to comic effect…If I were to follow my gut instinct I'd say that Gran has a best-seller on her hands." —The Independent
"One of the freshest voices in modern crime fiction… Gran has created a female sleuth to cherish." —Daily Mail
JUNE 2013 - AudioFile
Narrator Carol Monda is terrific in this second Claire DeWitt detective story. Her deep voice manages the detached, no-nonsense affect of Jack Webb in the old “Dragnet” TV series while still making the listener care about Claire. Claire is working on two cases. Her former lover, Paul, has been murdered in what appears to be a botched robbery, and she and her assistant, Claude, are investigating the disappearance of valuable miniature horses. Monda does everything right. Her men sound masculine. Women sound like women. And when she quotes Jacques Silette, Claire’s detecting mentor, Monda’s French accent is convincing. Flashbacks and nightmares flesh out Claire’s backstory, and, as she becomes increasingly dependent on cocaine, Monda keeps a tight grip on a life flying out of control. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
