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This book was..interesting. I know that word is often used as some low-key shade like, "How was dinner? It was interesting." But I don't mean it that way. I just don't know what I think, exactly.

Claire DeWitt lives in an alternate universe (I thought this before I read an ) where private investigators are much more prevalent and revered and loathed in equal measure. They are also less Marlowe-style gumshoes and more loopy metaphysical vision questers. And Claire, ever since her mentor Constance died, is considered the best of the best. She's also given to pinching painkillers from clients� bathrooms and using palmistry and the I Ching just as much as surveillance and interviews.

In this book, the first in a series of three thus far (as of this writing, the third one was just published), Claire is asked to take the case of a missing man in New Orleans about a year and a half after Katrina. Claire has not been there since Constance died. It's also her first case since her nervous breakdown really long spa weekend. Along the way she'll seek answers in dreams, muse frequently about the long shadow of the hurricane and what followed, and, uhm, smoke PCP with some suspects.


This was such an odd book. I liked Claire--I think--but for most of the story I wondered what in the actual hell she was doing, which I guess was the point. I did fear the mystery would be solved in an unsatisfactory, random way, especially after Claire meets a young homeless boy and proves she's a detective by accurately guessing his biographical history down to his once having worked in an ice cream parlor. How could she possibly know that? Unlike Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, her means of deduction is never explained, probably because there really isn't any.

However, the mystery is solved in a way that makes sense, I found the ending surprising moving, and I could see this character having some staying power (there is the long-standing unsolved case of the disappearance of a childhood friend from Brooklyn that I expect will come back at some point.) I think I liked this and want to read more? I've got to let this book sit for a while before I decide. I have seen some glowing reviews of the sequels by fellow Goodreaders and that, as you probably know for yourselves, is a good sign.