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A witty, engrossing homage to noir from National Book Award finalist Howard Norman.
Jacob Rigolet, a soon-to-be former assistant to a wealthy art collector, looks up from his seat at an auction - his mother, former head librarian at the Halifax Free Library, is walking almost casually up the aisle. Before a stunned audience, she flings an open jar of black ink at master photographer Robert Capa's "Death on a Leipzig Balcony." Jacob's police detective fiancée, Martha Crauchet, is assigned to the ensuing interrogation.
In My Darling Detective, Howard Norman delivers a fond nod to classic noir, as Jacob's understanding of the man he has always assumed to be his father unravels against the darker truth of Robert Emil, a Halifax police officer suspected but never convicted of murdering two Jewish residents during the shocking upswing of anti-Semitism in 1945. The denouement, involving a dire shootout and an emergency delivery - it's the second Rigolet to be born in the Halifax Free Library in a span of three decades - is Howard Norman at his "provocative ... haunting"* and uncannily moving best.
"Starred Review. An emotionally vibrant, keenly funny, genuinely suspenseful, and altogether spellbinding novel that will thrill Norman's fans and readers who relish creative improvisations on the grand noir tradition." - Booklist
"An unconventional, lively literary mystery." - Kirkus
"Norman punctuates literary noir's "darkness within" with both poignancy and a penchant for humor. Librarians will appreciate the nod to library and information science." - Library Journal
This information about My Darling Detective was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
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Photo: Nancy Crampton
Howard Norman was twice a finalist for the National Book Award. He is the author of Come to the Window, The Bird Artist, What Is Left the Daughter, My Darling Detective, and other novels. He received a Lannan Award in literature. He lives in East Calais, Vermont.
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