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"That's the thing about being a private eye. The job will bleed you dry. No one ever says 'Hey, maybe the PI needs a break. Hey, let's buy the PI a drink.' No thank-you cards, no flowers, no singing telegrams, and half the time you don't even get paid." -- Claire DeWitt, private investigator, on her chosen profession

Sara Gran's City of the Dead takes that classic American archetype - a hard-drinking, cynical private eye with some integrity - and kicks it firmly into the 21st century with the newest character who should join the ranks of Spade, Marlowe, Archer, and Spenser in PI lore. Claire DeWitt is her name, and after this debut I hope this original, offbeat character sticks around to tackle a lot more cases.

DeWitt was a Brooklyn teenager influenced by two incidents: the finding of the influential book Detection by Jacques Silette, and the abrupt and unexplained disappearance of her best friend Tracy. Flash forward a few years and DeWitt receives her informal training from (the wonderfully named) Constance Darling, a Silette contemporary operating in New Orleans. Silette's words and Darling's ways are repeatedly referenced in DeWitt's thoughts and/or actions throughout the story.

City of the Dead has DeWitt, now a grown-up solo San Francisco PI, reluctantly back in 'The Big Easy' to investigate the disappearance of a respected assistant district attorney. The events take place only a year or so after the traumatic Hurricane Katrina, so things are still off-kilter in a damaged community that already had extreme and on-going issues with crime, poverty, corruption, etc.

Along the way we learn about DeWitt, especially with the classic first-person narration often used to great effect in private eye books. She's no angel (but who is?), and she's not Nancy Drew. DeWitt is prone to alienate herself from friends / acquaintances with her sometimes abrasive attitude. There may be some mental health issues. She also uses some questionable controlled substances to relax. And yet once she starts her investigation she will stubbornly see this thing through until the end.