claire dewitt and the city of the dead review

And I don’t just mean mention-to-your-husband-after-dinner remember. But her bizarre “let the mystery solve me” type of approach is so fresh and weird I found myself turning down page after page to mark the quotes I wanted to remember. She has been described as a cross between Nancy Drew and Sid Vicious. Crime fans interested to try something different should certainly give Sara Gran’s latest a try.Ĭhris Roberts is a retired manager of shopping centres in Hong Kong, and now lives in Bristol, primarily reading.At first I didn’t think I’d like this book.Ĭlaire DeWitt is world’s greatest PI, which is hard to believe since she spends a lot of her time stoned or tossing I Ching Hexagrams coins to figure out what to do next. Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway is unlikely to disappoint them: the writing is certainly powerful and sustains interest in Claire and her world. Could Claire really manage to support such a costly lifestyle on the meagre earnings from her detective business? Would reliance on intuition not be fatal to such an enterprise? Is it possible to live a life with so little interaction with the commonplace - family connections, the supermarket, the news report?īut putting such questions aside, the book is quite extraordinary: Claire’s life feels more like science fiction than a tale set in a current-day major US city, and by challenging the reality we all take for granted, and familiar assumptions as to how a detective operates, Gran provides genuine stimulus for thought.Ĭity of the Dead, the first Claire DeWitt novel, garnered some big-name fans.

There are, frankly, a few aspects of the story that do nag at the reader more accustomed to a more conventional background. It is a significant tribute to Gran’s abilities that she manages to make this society engaging and reasonably convincing for the length of the book. Some are rich and some are poor but there is a common belief in tattoos, alternative medical therapies, and what constitutes culture, all some distance away from mainstream USA. Sara Gran presents a compelling picture of a distinctly American 21st century sub-culture, predominantly comprising young people of under-performing parents who make their own rules as regards relationships, use of alcohol and narcotics, and how to earn a living.

In occasional chapters we hear about Claire’s first detective case in Brooklyn, aspects of which are still unresolved.

Her progress is helped, or hindered, by her strong feelings for the deceased and her substitution of a variety of drugs for more customary nutrition. It looks like a thief was interrupted, but there are a few details which don’t quite add up, and Claire seeks answers. When ex-boyfriend Paul is found shot in his own flat, the San Francisco police tip her off. Claire DeWitt is a strikingly unusual private eye, with a philosophy based on the metaphysical musings of an obscure Frenchman and a schoolgirl detective out of a comic.

Claire dewitt and the city of the dead review