Your mysteries are yours alone.” Claire lies. His teachings are cryptic and somewhat mystical: “You are alone in your search no friend, no lover, no God from above will come to your aid. She quotes her mentor, Jacques Silette, and his legendary, only book, Détection, often. She has vivid dreams that serve as warnings. Claire takes the case.įrom the first page we see the inner workings of Claire’s troubled mind. Vic’s luxurious apartment in the French Quarter didn’t flood there’s no sign of a break-in. She meets Leon Salvatore, a scruffy 40-year-old whose uncle, Vic Willing, an assistant district attorney in the city prosecutor’s office, hasn’t been seen since the hurricane hit. Claire’s been summoned back to the Big Easy to investigate a missing persons case. Claire herself is a sympathetic antihero, and little by little you get her backstory to understand what makes her believe she’s the world’s greatest (if unconventional) PI. It also has some quirks: Claire DeWitt’s adherence to the methods of an obscure French detective, for example. It’s got lots of slangy dialogue, rampant drug use, and a smattering of sex and violence to keep things edgy. It’s set in a gritty urban environment, this time New Orleans post-Katrina. There’s a self-destructive protagonist who may or may not be a reliable narrator. There’s something really fun and escapist about hard-boiled detective novels, and Sara Gran’s first Claire DeWitt mystery, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, delivers in spades. Claire DeWitt and the City of the Deadby Sara Gran
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