![]() Baldacci nails the noir.Īre we not men? We are-well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Ī zombie apocalypse is one thing. The 1950s weren’t the fabled good old days, but they’re fodder for gritty crime stories of high ideals and lowlifes, of longing and disappointment, and all the trouble a PI can handle. Baldacci paints a vivid picture of the not-so-distant era when everybody smoked, Joe McCarthy hunted commies, and Marilyn Monroe stirred men’s loins. Either that or he’s simply a “pavement-pounding PI on a slow dance to maybe nowhere.” And if some goon doesn’t do him in sooner, his Lucky Strikes will probably do him in later. Liberty loves Archer, but will she put up with the daily danger of losing him? Why doesn’t he get a safe job, maybe playing one of LA’s finest on the hit TV show Dragnet? Instead, he’s a tough and principled idealist who wants to make the world a better place. ![]() He’d bought it with his gambling winnings in Reno, and only a bullet hole in the windscreen post mars its perfection. Not rich at all, his one luxury is the blood-red 1939 Delahaye he likes to drive with the top down. Luck and grit keep him alive in both Vegas and the City of Angels, which is rife with gangsters and crooked cops. A 30-year-old World War II combat veteran, Archer is a righteous and brave hero. Archer takes plenty of physical abuse in the story, but at least he doesn’t get a bullet between the eyes like the guy he trips over. Later, he sneaks into Lamb’s house and stumbles upon a body, then gets knocked out by an unseen assailant. Screenwriter Eleanor Lamb shows up and offers to hire him because “someone might be trying to kill me.” “I’m fifty a day plus expenses,” he replies, but money’s no obstacle. Private investigator Aloysius Archer celebrates New Year’s Eve 1952 in LA with his gorgeous lady friend and aspiring actress Liberty Callahan. An old-fashioned gumshoe yarn about Hollywood dreams and dead bodies. ![]()
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