City of Rose

December 14, 2015
Hart’s appealing second Ash McKenna noir (after 2015’s New Yorked) finds the former New York PI aground in Portland, Ore., where he passes quiet days as a bouncer at a vegan strip club (the food “is mostly hummus plates and black bean tacos”), working to quell daydreams of bagels and nightmares about the recent death of Chell, the woman he loved. When a dancer at the club asks for help finding her missing daughter, apparently snatched from day care by the girl’s father, he weighs a twinge of sympathy against his vow to stay far from the violence of detective life and says no. But when a mysterious chicken-masked gunman warns Ash to stay away, he determines to find the girl. In the process, Ash tangles with drug cartels, political conspiracy, and the internal demons he hoped to escape in laid-back Portland. In attempting to balance the goofy fish-out-of-New-Yawk-water punch lines with Ash’s inner darkness, Hart struggles at times for a coherent tone. Still, readers will enjoy his playful, jaded hero and twisty plot. Agent: Bree Ogden, D4EO Literary Agency.

December 1, 2015
A strip-club bouncer sets out to find a dancer's missing child in the second novel featuring the detective Ash McKenna. Leaving New York City in the wake of tragedy, Ash turns up working in a vegan strip joint in Portland, Oregon. His vow to keep a low profile goes out the window when he's warned not to look into the case of a dancer whose small child was taken by her junkie ex. The trail brings Ash in contact with both Mexican drug cartels and an ambitious local pol. This is familiar hard-boiled territory, but it's well executed and strikes an appealing balance, rough without being sadistic, gritty without being sordid. Ash's reluctance to use violence to deal with his adversaries resolves itself in a way that doesn't duck the moral quandary of pacifism, though the vengeance he finally takes isn't presented as triumphant, either. Still, that reluctance goes on too long. Ash's slowness in accepting that the bad guys are clearly not open to reason strains not just the credibility of the plot, but the hero's commitment to the safety of the stripper and her daughter. Occasional lapses into sentimentality don't detract from an engaging read, but they do fall short of the book's best moments, which are characterized by Hart's quick and witty turns of phrase. A novel in which a woman announces "This is the most I've smoked since I found out I was pregnant" is one to warm the hard-bitten cockles of a noir fan's heart.

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December 15, 2015
After the self-destructive events detailed in New Yorked (2015), Ash McKenna decamped for Portland, Oregon, to heal himself. He's working as a bouncer/custodian in a vegan strip clubPortland bars must serve food, he explains. Using a mix of vaguely Buddhist axioms and self-help-book nostrums, he's trying to refrain from liking to chain smoke and hit things. And quirky, laid-back Portland seems to be helping. When Crystal, one of the club's dancers, asks Ash to help her recover Rose, her four-year-old daughter, who has been taken by her junkie father, Ash declines. But he changes his mind, remembering that he needs to earn some karma. Almost immediately, he is abducted by a gun-toting man wearing a rubber chicken mask. His oft-stated skill at finding people is sabotaged by his lack of knowledge of the city. But Ash perseveres, encountering chicken mask again, drug-cartel heavies, and, ultimately, one of the most powerful men in the city. City of Rose is briskly told, and Ash's arch, loopy narration is often very funny. It's been a good season for thrillers with a touch of comedy: serve this with J. D. Rhoades' Ice Chest.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)