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Claire DeWitt grew up in New York City, skipping school and solving crimes with best friends Tracy and Kelly under the literary tutelage of French detective Jacques Silette by way of his only book, DETECTION. One night Tracy vanished, and after months of searching turned up not a single clue, Claire left the city and ended up in New Orleans. She was taken in by Constance Darling, an ex-lover of Silette's, a woman who calls herself the world's greatest detective. Constance tutored Claire in being a detective until she was killed in a shooting in a restaurant and Claire left New Orleans for San Francisco. Now Claire describes herself the world's greatest detective and she's back in New Orleans having been employed by Leon Salvatore to find his uncle, Assistant District Attorney Vic Willing, who has been missing since Hurricane Katrina. With the help of another of Constance's ex-students, Mike Yablonsky, she begins to dig into the life of Vic Willing. Soon she realises that she's not uncovering anything but lies despite befriending a kid who obviously knows more than he's telling. When people start trying to kill her she realises that the lies are hiding an unpleasant truth but like any true student of Silette, Claire won't ever give up until the mystery is solved. Drive-by shootings, drugs and guns for sale on street corners, abandoned children forced to do whatever they can to survive; this isn't a novel for the faint-hearted. The story is set in the worst corners of New Orleans, somewhere Claire DeWitt fits perfectly; she drinks heavily, does all the drugs she can and when she's not doing either, she's main-lining coffee. The case she's investigating has its roots deep in the city's recent history: the storm's devastating effects not only on the infrastructure but on the culture and the people, the insidious police corruption, singular acts of bravery and kindness and the truths kept hidden by a city practically abandoned by the rest of the world. Claire DeWitt is a forceful character, a strong female lead still missing from most modern media. The mystery of her friend's disappearance is one that the author is presumably planning on solving in a later book and enough of that story is told here that readers will want to know more. There is something unsatisfying in the solution of this mystery though, which is to be expected given that one of the pronouncements of the great Silette that are scattered throughout the narrative states that no one wants their mystery solved and that's the burden the detective must bear. Sara Gran is turning the calling of a detective into a spiritual one, something which might frustrate fans of the genre. But this is a fresh approach, and the setting of the story in the deeply damaged city of New Orleans gives it an unsettled, unusual atmosphere which means it's a book that is not easily put down or forgotten. This is a promising start for Claire DeWitt and it will be interesting to find out what the future holds for her. § Madeleine Marsh is an aspiring author who lives in South West England. She helps run sci-fi conventions and loves modern cinema.
Reviewed by Madeleine Marsh, May 2011
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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