The novel begins in New York in the early 2010s when our narrator takes up a case related to an upcoming divorce. This takes him to the world of book collecting. He’s been asked by a woman to find evidence that her husband has or is planning to sell off legal transcripts (a particular item in book collecting). He poses as a collector and receives a list of texts and an offer to sell, the evidence he needs. We learn that he’s a disaffected lawyer who seems like he’s done with corporate law and maybe law at large and this foray into private detection is maybe his next step. He’s literate and literary in his sensibilities, and his closest friend is even a poet who calls himself Ulises Lima, from Roberto Bolano’s character in The Savage Detectives. Things start going sideways when he arrives home one night after seeing the movie Touch of Evil to find a woman sitting on his stoop. He recognizes her as a well-known author, and she introduces herself as the actual woman in the divorce case (she uses a pen name when publishing) and it turns out he’s been pulled into something bigger than he realized.
The novel is more Paul Auster than Donna Tartt, if we’re connecting literary detective fiction together, but it’s more Raymond Chandler than either if it’s coming down to things. The pacing and the tone are welcoming and a little goofy without ever being wry, and the mystery is compelling. It’s short and interesting and I was pulled in from the beginning, and like a good novel, never overstays its welcome.