Little Girl Lost A John Blake Mystery (Audible Audio Edition) Richard Aleas L J Ganser Audible Studios Books
Download As PDF : Little Girl Lost A John Blake Mystery (Audible Audio Edition) Richard Aleas L J Ganser Audible Studios Books
John Blake and Miranda Sugarman dated in high school, but after graduation they went their separate ways he stayed in New York City and became a private investigator, while she moved to the midwest and settled down to a safe, respectable life as an eye doctor. Or so he thought - until the day, 10 years later, when he opened the Daily News and saw Miranda's photo staring out at him under the headline "STRIPPER MURDERED."
John wants to find out how Miranda ended up stripping for a living. What happened to Miranda's college roommate, Jocelyn, who also dropped out when Miranda did? And just how was Miranda involved with small-time drug dealer Murco Khachadurian?
The closer John gets to the answers, the more dangerous and violent the case becomes, until a bloody assault on someone close to him leads John to a shocking discovery and a shattering face-off with the person responsible.
Little Girl Lost A John Blake Mystery (Audible Audio Edition) Richard Aleas L J Ganser Audible Studios Books
I'm a big fan of hardboiled mysery/noir crime and, as a result, love the Hard Case Crime books. I was hesitant to read this book because it's written by the editor/founder of Hard Case Crime and I wondered if it was a vanity project that wouldn't hold up to the rest of the catalog. The truth is, this is one of the best books in the HCC family. It was tight, well-paced, and it hit the right hardboiled genre tropes without being cheesy, derivative, or lazy. I loved the subtext to the PI's investigation. It was as if he wanted to learn more about himself and what led to his underachieving life; it captured the classic third-life crisis many of us experience in our late 20s. I've always preferred heist or amateur sleuth books in this genre, but this PI has me excited to read his next case. On another note, I'm an author myself and realize my utter snobbery in questioning the legitimacy of this book in the first place. Who says my books are good and deserve to be on the digital shelves? I shouldn't have waited so long to read this due to such assumptions. Well done.Product details
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Little Girl Lost A John Blake Mystery (Audible Audio Edition) Richard Aleas L J Ganser Audible Studios Books Reviews
One star off for predictability. Anyone the least familiar with mass-produced TV cop-shows having a limited number of characters available as the guilty party(ies) will be able to reverse engineer this engaging story's main plot by about the 40% mark. The twist in the tail thus comes from *how* it ends and not who is/are the guilty party(ies). It's probably an hyperbole but I guess you can say that the pleasure in this novel lies in the journey rather than the destination.
Who hasn't wondered what happened to an individual you once, a long time ago, had deep feelings for? John Blake, a 29-year-old guy whose high-flying prospects fizzled and led him to end up working at a storefront detective agency, opens the paper to read a shock-report. Miranda Sugarman, his one true high school sweetheart has died a murder victim. Worse, she was discovered with two hollow-points through the back her head on the roof of one of New York's scruffiest strip-joints. His Miranda, who ten years earlier left for college in New Mexico in order to train as an eye doctor! How did this happen? Blake is compelled by a crusade of unrequited love to bring her killer(s) to justice, knowing that the cops will simply follow procedure and the chances are slide the case of just another dead stripper into the stone-cold trash can within the week. Piece by piece he finds isolated puzzle pieces and starts to fit them together....
It's a great premise. Who hasn't wondered about the lives and fates of lovers, like Miranda, who you once...long ago...placed at the center of your life?
John Black is a likable character with many sterling qualities. I could relate to him easily in the novel. Yes, some of his actions depart from what is sensible in real-life, but not too far as to be cartoonish. He's not a wimp but not a rock-jawed all-American tough guy either. There's a stellar cast of drug-dealing gangsters, goons, barmen, low-lifes and, of course....strippers! In that regard, LGL paints a rosy glow over these ladies and even goes so far as to make the point that...hey, it's a job, like any other so don't judge them too harshly. However in one of his novels, Deon Meyer for example hits the right note by having a lady character say that as long as you save your money, keep away from drugs and get out by age 30...yes, then the skin trade is a job. Christa Faust is another noir writer on the skin trade, but she puts up much closer insights than are presented in LGL. (No biggie, but I just thought I'd bring and share.)
LGL'S pace always moves quickly and there's a lot to like in the deft environmental descriptions. The ending is truly poignant and the author leaves the reader to judge John Blake's final actions - preachy and tied up with a bow on top they ain't. Blake's internal dialog is a key part of the story and it's easy to underestimate his character if you skim over these passages. If I have one complaint in this area, it relates to inter-character dialog which tends to be pared back and thus gives limited support to their respective characterizations.
Summing up, I really liked LGL and it hit me emotionally hard. How else you describe finishing the novel at bedtime and waking up in the low hours of night thinking about the Mirandas of this world and *this* Miranda's fate? That's powerful stuff, right there.
And Wow! Isn't the cover artwork superb!
Some little girls are nine, some nineteen, others twenty-nine, but when a little girl is lost there's usually someone who goes looking for her, or maybe just for the memory of her. John Blake and Miranda Surgarman were nineteen, out of high school, and looking toward the future--he was going to be an academic and a poet, she an ophthalmologist. One last fling together, in his apartment while his mom was away, and then they would go their separate ways, to their separate destinies. Though they would probably never see each other again, they will still buoy each other over the years with their memories, one using the hopes and plans of the other to prop up their own lives when dreams went awry; no matter what happened, one could always find a measure of solace in the thought that the other was doing well on the other side of the country.
Fast-forward ten years. Blake's plans went astray. Instead of a scholar in the ivied halls of academia, he is a two-bit private detective working for a half-bit agency. His life may have gone swirling down the crapper, but he still had his memories of Miranda and his belief that she had done well with her own life. At least he had all that until he opened a New York newspaper and saw a familiar yearbook picture next to the headline "Stripper Murdered." He had lost her ten years earlier when they had followed their separate paths, but as he read the news report of a miserable existence in one strip club after another, each worse than the last, he realized she had lost her way in life long ago, as had he, but now she was lost to him forever. Filled with regret and guilt, he resolved to find out how things had gone so wrong, to find the little girl he had lost, even though he knew there was a good chance he would not like what he found.
This book from Hard Case Crime was written by the publishing line's co-founder Charles Ardai under the pen-name Richard Aleas in 2004. "Little Girl Lost" is firmly ensconced in the noir crime genre with a tarnished knight errant questing through a stark urban landscape populated by grifters and crooks, rummies and dummies, and jaded cops who want nothing more than a simple case and to live long enough to finish their shifts. Also in the tradition of the genre, John Blake tells his own story in a first-person narrative that is engrossing, kinetic and insightful. He shares with the reader not only his loss, guilt and dogged persistence, but his pain and confusion, and, ultimately, his revelation and sense of betrayal. "Little Girl Lost" is an excellent addition to the genre, well written, expertly plotted, and very near the top of the heap.
I'm a big fan of hardboiled mysery/noir crime and, as a result, love the Hard Case Crime books. I was hesitant to read this book because it's written by the editor/founder of Hard Case Crime and I wondered if it was a vanity project that wouldn't hold up to the rest of the catalog. The truth is, this is one of the best books in the HCC family. It was tight, well-paced, and it hit the right hardboiled genre tropes without being cheesy, derivative, or lazy. I loved the subtext to the PI's investigation. It was as if he wanted to learn more about himself and what led to his underachieving life; it captured the classic third-life crisis many of us experience in our late 20s. I've always preferred heist or amateur sleuth books in this genre, but this PI has me excited to read his next case. On another note, I'm an author myself and realize my utter snobbery in questioning the legitimacy of this book in the first place. Who says my books are good and deserve to be on the digital shelves? I shouldn't have waited so long to read this due to such assumptions. Well done.
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