Slipstream

Starred review from March 13, 2006
Next time you join the throngs of people hurrying through a major airport like LAX, spare a thought for those who work there. That's what Larson's impressively rich, darkly plotted and seriously frightening debut thriller does. That bartender, Wylie, who just poured you a drink to calm your nerves: what's his story? Why does this twitchy Vietnam vet who can "play slide guitar, frame a house, smoke a salmon to perfection" avoid entanglements and spend his working hours serving Dewar's at $6.50 a pop? Why does Wylie getting his ex-con brother, Logan, a job at the airport cause so much trouble? Why can't Rudy, the head of a plane-cleaning crew, tell his wife, Inez, about his being fired? And how is the lesbian love life of Logan's daughter, Jewell, a hard-working architecture student, affected by what happens to Rudy and by Inez's plan to leave her husband? Larson zooms in on these five deceptively ordinary people, showing how their lives intersect and climax in a hail of bullets. Best of all is the way Larson uses LAX to capture the despair and sadness of a city like Los Angeles.

May 15, 2006
Yet another story of Los Angeles and the intertwined lives of its citizens, this debut travels through the less-glamorous parts of the city to arrive at a climax that is satisfying if not especially surprising. The story shifts among five characters: Wylie, an airport bartender who is coasting through a rather dull life; his brother Logan, an ex-con trying to go straight; Logan's daughter Jewell, who is an architecture student in the middle of breaking up with her girlfriend; Rudy, driven to desperation after being fired from his job cleaning airplanes; and Inez, Rudy's wife, who is secretly selling Avon to save enough money to leave him. Rudy suffers a mental breakdown, which results in a denouement that will, among other things, shake Wylie out of his complacency, reconcile Logan and Jewell, and free Inez from the unhappy marriage. Larson's settings are believably grimy, and her characters have interesting corners, but the novel works better as a glimpse into daily life than as a thriller. Recommended for larger fiction collections." -Jenne Bergstrom, San Diego Cty. Lib."

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2006
A melodramatic ending mars this otherwise deft debut set against the backdrop of Los Angeles and its airport, a soulless expanse where employees quite literally watch the world pass them by. " Slipstream"(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)