The Infinite Blacktop

July 1, 2018

The third boon in Gran's metaphysical, gritty series (after Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead and Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway) begins with a hit-and-run in 2011 Oakland. Someone is trying to kill Claire DeWitt. Injured, she evades the authorities and heads to Las Vegas, looking for answers to this new mystery and the disappearance of her friend in 1986. Along the way, she recalls a cold case in 1995 Los Angeles, tangles with other detectives and underworld characters, and ingests vast quantities of drugs while contemplating life's big questions through the lens of a girl detective comic book and the writings of a French detective-philosopher. The story begins rather disjointedly, but hits its stride when Gran drops some of the high quirk and focuses on the intricacies and delusions of the art world in the 1995 case. The artists' search for truth and meaning mirror her own. VERDICT Fans who have been eagerly awaiting Claire's next outing will be satisfied; newcomers are advised to read the first two books before diving into this one. Not a neat little whodunit at all, this looks at the larger mysteries of life, love, and identity, and bears rereading.--Liz French, Library Journal

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 9, 2018
At the start of Gran’s bold and stunning third novel featuring PI Claire DeWitt (after 2013’s Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway), Claire is headed for Las Vegas, Nev., in 2011 when she’s nearly killed by a crazed driver in Oakland, Calif. She manages to limp away from the scene, wondering who would have wanted to kill her. Flash back to Brooklyn in 1985, when Claire was the world’s greatest teenage detective. As a devotee of Jacques Silette, the French author of an obscure book called Détection, she and best friends Tracy and Kelly solved many cases. That same year Tracy vanished without a trace, and her disappearance has haunted Claire ever since. Back in 2011, Claire has discovered a lead in Las Vegas involving a rare comic book that may hold the key to what happened to Tracy. In a third narrative strand, set in Los Angeles in 1999, the 20-something Claire, who needs hours to earn her PI license, takes on a cold case involving the strange deaths of two artists. Mixing classic tropes of teen detective fiction with elements of eastern philosophy and a profound sense of the absurd, Gran takes readers on an unforgettable journey. Agent: Barney Karpfinger, Karpfinger Agency.

July 15, 2018
An existentially weary PI confronts three major cases that may be related in Gran's (Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway, 2013, etc.) fragmented take on the hard-boiled mystery genre.She wasn't supposed to walk away from the accident, but somehow, intrepid PI Claire DeWitt survives, because, as she tells herself, she is the best detective in the world. In fact, in her whole career, there is only one mystery that she hasn't been able to solve, other than how to live an emotionally balanced and financially successful life--the disappearance of one of her best friends when they were teenagers. So as Claire sets out to discover who is trying to kill her, the novel also cuts to this past disappearance and to one of Claire's biggest cases in between. The latter, a murder investigation that she had to solve in order to earn her California PI license, becomes in many ways the core of the novel; the tendrils of mystery, motive, and investigation spread out across 25 years as the cases begin to converge. The quick movement from time period to time period, coupled with Claire's intellectual and sometimes depressive musings, makes the novel slow to start, but there's a fascinating echo in these pages of classic LA noir detective fiction from the age of Hammett and Chandler. Like Sam Spade and his ilk, Claire is jaded, but she's driven by "the only thing that was real, [which] was solving that mystery and if I got hurt or if I got lost or if I died--no matter what came in my way and no matter who came in my way I was going to solve it." And in seeking truth, she discovers faith, no matter how slim and how fragile, in her own existence.Give it a bit of time to wind up and you'll be charmed by this eccentric, enticingly artful mystery.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from August 1, 2018
After a five-year wait (following Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway?, 2013), Claire DeWitt continues her quest to solve the mystery of her childhood friend's disappearance?even if it kills her. Claire, Tracy, and Kelly were best friends growing up in Brooklyn who discovered their passion for solving mysteries through philosopher-detective Jacques Silette's treatise on detection and through the Cynthia Silverton, Teen Detective, comics. After the case-cracking teen trio became renowned for their investigative prowess, Tracy suddenly disappeared, leaving Claire and Kelly determined to solve the mystery of her vanishing. Now in her twenties and living in L.A., Claire narrowly escapes death at the hands of a mysterious white-haired man, and she's convinced the attack is a response to intriguing connections she's discovered between Jay Gleason (Silette's prot�g�), Tracy, and Silverton. Flashbacks to Claire's life-altering investigation of a controversial artist's death provide a kind of Zen context for Claire's current, rage-fueled hunt for the white-haired man. Gran's unique mysteries are an irresistible blend of quirky philosophical quests, gritty fight scenes, and painful truths. This very special series will have Alan Bradley fans imagining what might have happened if Flavia de Luce had grown up and landed in noir-tinted California.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)