Just Finished Reading: Little Girl Lost by Richard Aleas (FP: 2004)

P.I John Blake could hardly believe his eyes. Miranda Sugarman, his High School girlfriend was in the paper – looking just as she had 10 years previously when he’s seen her last. That’s because they had used her High School Year Book shot. Well, they could hardly have used her most recent pictures shot by the police before they took her body away. Especially when she had been shot twice in the head at point blank range. If that wasn’t mystery enough for John to wrap his head around there was the fact that her body had been recovered from the roof of a strip joint – a particularly seedy strip joint – where Miranda had worked and she wasn’t behind the bar. What had happened in the intervening 10 years? When Miranda left New York she was going to College to become a doctor. What had happened to change her direction so drastically and who was responsible for her particularly bloody and apparently senseless death. John was determined to find out no matter what it cost. His Boss warned him against such a personal case, the strip club owner warned him not to interfere, the police warned him not to take the law into his own hands and, just before he lost consciousness the club bouncer warned him that, next time, he’d kill him. But John has something to prove and he’s young enough, still green enough and romantic enough to think he can do just that.

I’ve read about a dozen of the Hard Case crime novels so far – pretty evenly split between classic 40’s and 50’s tales and more up to date versions of noir themes. Almost without fail the older books have been consistently entertaining and the more modern books consistently poor. This book definitely breaks that mould. Bang up to date but with a lovely noir feel to it, a simple but rather convoluted plot, flawed, shady but complex characters (even the main gangster has understandable motivations that can be appreciated if not approved of) and enough red herrings to start a fish shop. More than once I thought I had worked things out only to find that I had been misdirected and was off down the wrong street full of confidence. Not only was the dialogue often fizzing away even in casual conversation but the asides and ‘off camera’ comments were equally noir-ish. This was my particular favourite: They’d gotten there quickly, but there’s no such thing as quickly enough when you’ve been shot in the head with hollow point bullets….. and that was on page 25 with another 200 pages to go. Needless to say that I enjoyed this immensely. Luckily I have the sequel with I’ll be reading in the next few weeks. Unfortunately Mr Aleas has only two books to his name. Shame that. Real shame. Recommended for all hard-nosed crime fans.