Day 03 - The best book you've read in the last 12 months.
This is a tough one. I think I’ll have to say The Little Sleep by Paul Tremblay. Lately I’ve been reading a lot of comfortable little cozy mysteries and this book took a total 180 from those.
Mark Genevich is a Boston PI with narcolepsy. He makes his way in the world by doing computer investigations and living in a building owned by his tough/tender momma. When he’s approached by the DA’s daughter, a finalist in a fictional American Idol, he’s thrown into a noir adventure worthy of the finest pulp fiction.
Mark is at once pitiful and determined. He hides his strength behind flip comments and the behavior needed to stay awake at the most crucial moments. Once he’s committed to the daughter’s plight, whether he’s imagined her or not, he’s going to see it to the end, whether that means putting himself into a driver’s seat or getting the crap kicked out of him. His loyalty to the cause he’s chosen reminds me of the late Robert B. Parkers’ Spenser, only without that Boston PI’s street smarts and muscles.
There are a lot of reason’s I’m naming this as my fave in the last 12 months. One may be that it’s such a different vibe than most of what I’ve been reading lately. Darker, more painful. And the writing is full of humor and wordplay and strangely heartfelt. We want to see Mark succeed and not get hurt and stay awake when he needs to. We want to see him clean up his stark apartment and find someone who has the patience to walk with him through his slow-moving life.
I was happy to see that there is at least one more Mark Genevich book (I’ve read it--it’s as good as the first one-No Sleep Til Wonderland) and I’m hoping there’ll be more. Raymond Chandler would be proud.
C’est la vie!
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