Book review: The infinite Blacktop by Sara Gran

[kestrell]

This is the third in a series of mysteries featuring Claire DeWitt, which manage to combine the grittiness of contemporary noir with the uncanniness of the occult detectives of the early twentieth century . For example, the mythic detective who wrote the book that Claire, literally, lives by, is Jacques Silette, whose name faintly echoes that of John Silence, one of weird fiction's most famous metaphysical detectives. From the Nancy Drew-style girl detective comics which originally sparked Claire's interest in detection to the evocative names she gives the cases she has worked on (naming is given almost ritualistic significance in Claire's life), Claire's world is full of dark detail and ominous connections and yet, like an even more poetic Philip Marlow, it's Claire's own brokenness which allows her to sense and interpret the most arcane of clues, leading a physically and emotionally battered Claire through the labyrinthine cityscapes through which she pursues her leads.
Gran's prose is alternately gritty and lyrical and, like Claire herself, can turn on a dime from being hard as nails to heartbreakingly tender, highlighting how many mysteries are contained within everyday life.

Comments

[bibliofile]

I hadn't known about the John Silence books/stories; thanks. (Searching my library system for "John Silence" brought up mainly books about John Cage, which was an amusing distraction but not quite the same thing.)

Yes, the mysteries within everyday life thing, that's definitely part of what I like about the Claire DeWitt books.

[kestrell]

If you like occult detective stories, I highly recommend The Mammoth Book of Dark Detectives, edited by Stephen Jones. Jones intro is a great overview of the genre, and it not only includes a variety of both classic stories and newer, hard to find stories, but it's all woven together by a series of pastiches written by Kim Newman.

I'm still very disappointed that Jacques Silette's _Detection_ is not available in our version of the multiverse.