Review: Double Solitaire: A Novel

Double Solitaire: A Novel by Craig Nova
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A rocky start to what sounds like a new series from an oldtimer. A new book hasn't been published since 2013, so it was exciting to read his latest novel. I have never read anything by this author, so I didn't have any expectations. I'm glad I did not have any. This way, I had nothing to be disappointed about with this book that tries too hard to be crime noir (for the sake of clarity -Noir fiction or roman noir). I happen to like my term better! LOL!

If you're as old as I am or happen to love crime movies from the 1940's, you may do as I did and imagine each character as an old-time actor or actress. It was disconcerting to think of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall or Katharine Hepburn in the rolls of Farrell and Rose Marie. I could plainly see Cary Grant as the evil yet sexy Terry Peregrine.

Now throw in some Russian hit-men/shake-down artists, and you have a heck of a mishmash going on.

While this book may not have been my cup of tea, this will be an enjoyable read for anyone into crime noir. However, I can't even see how this is going to turn into a series. At least not if the romance keeps playing out. But what do I know? I'm not the author, only the reader!

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SYNOPSIS: "A tantalizing LA Novel by Legendary American Writer, Craig Nova, for fans of Michael Connelly and James Ellroy.

Quinn Farrell is a modern-day fixer in Los Angeles — he cleans up other people’s messes. Rich people’s messes. For a lot of money. He’s so good that he’s become indispensable to Hollywood moguls and he’s managed to construct a working moral framework so that he can live with himself. That is until a new neighbor moves next door, Rose Marie, who works with terminally ill teens. Against all his survival instincts, Farrell falls in love with Rose Marie and then her uncanny patients, who shine a spotlight into his soul. When a client steps over the line and Farrell is hired to clean up after a reprehensible crime, his carefully constructed ethical house of cards comes crashing down. 

Double Solitaire is the first in a series of LA-based thrillers featuring Quinn Farrell,. As with all Nova’s deeply intuitive fiction, Farrell is an unforgettable living force in a setting that needs no fiction to be any weirder than it is: contemporary Hollywood. "