Siren Songs

“Much has been written about the validity and relevance of the private-eye genre in the 21st century,” explains Anthony Rainone in today’s January Magazine review of Richard Aleas’ second John Blake detective novel, “but Songs of Innocence proves that P.I.s can still function ably in fiction as speakers for the marginalized among us.”

In Songs, the sequel to the multiple-award-nominated novel Little Girl Lost (2004), Aleas--the pseudonym of Hard Case Crime book publisher Charles Ardai--sends his trying-to-retire New York City sleuth, Blake, out to make sense of the alleged suicide of Dorothy “Dorrie” Burke. She was a beautiful young Columbia University student and, with Blake, a familiar member of the walking wounded--someone he’d befriended, and with whom he had discussed the pros and cons and techniques of suicide. After Dorrie is found in her bathtub, a “plastic bag ... taped tightly around her neck with gray duct tape,” and the cops rule her passing a suicide, Blake is prepared to accept that verdict. But then Dorrie’s mother tries to hire him to investigate, and that sends our hero off on “a personal crusade” to bring his friend’s killer to justice. Even if it means entering the crime- and disappointment-plagued world of Manhattan’s sex trade, where Dorrie earned money as a masseuse. Even if it requires that Blake face off against toughs on the order of Ardo the Hungarian and his henchman, Miklos. And even if it means that he must once more confront the personal demons he got to know in Little Girl Lost, when he went pawing through this same sordid side of New York in search of another friend, Miranda Sugarman.

Rainone says that Songs of Innocence offers “a terrific and seductive ride.” You can read all of his review here.