Where the Bones Lie

It's pub day today for an author I've enjoyed reading for years. He's a writer who's both prolific and versatile, and for his newest book, he's turned his hand to a form that because it's so familiar is that much more difficult to do well. I'm talking about the private eye novel, and specifically, the West Coast PI novel. Can you write one of these things nowadays without being cliched or parodic? That's always my question, but, well, of course you can, but you need to have the ingenuity and the chops to pull it off. Nick Kolakowski, the writer I'm talking about, has both, and he's employed his many skills to craft his own version of a PI tale, called Where the Bones Lie. 

The verdict: Simple. It's a highly suspenseful and often darkly comic book about a Hollywood fixer at a low point in his life who helps a young woman solve a very high profile missing person's case. We are in Hollywood, people, and in odd secluded California towns, and scandal and secrets are everywhere. Bones indeed may be buried in places bones should not be buried. But who better than a flawed and haunted individual to understand the flaws and problems of others? Where the Bones Lie has a tight plot, action that's plentiful, and its entertainment is continual.

As I mentioned, the book is out today, and it's well worth picking up.