Just finished
Huge, the debut novel of
James Fuerst.
A classic hardboiled detective story, with the necessary wisecracks, femmes fatales, thickening plot, betrayal, gratuitous sex and violence - but with a twist: the hero is a preteen misfit in a small american town, and the crime some badly performed graffiti on the sign of his grandmother's retirement home. Good fun for fans of the genre. On another level, the book is also about the passage from the fantasies of childhood to the disillusionment, responsibilities and joys of adulthood. Oh, and the hero has a trusty and vicious sidekick!
A good read, and my first library book, by the way.