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Title: Noir detective story with a lot of feeling
Review: At the outset Lew Griffin's former lover, Laverne, has just passed away. But she leaves a message for Lew asking him to find her recently pregnant and drug addicted daughter who has disappeared. Lew feels that he has to fulfill this request and gets pulled back into the work that he used to do, like a moth to the flame. This is a New Orleans college professor, missing work to go intimidate thugs and break some faces in the process of finding Laverne's daughter. What really made this story so intriguing was Sallis' ability to pack a lot of meaning into just a few words. None of the words felt unnecessary, and Lew emits such an aura of understanding people that he creates a lot of powerful moments without saying much. I loved this book and have since been seeking out all of Sallis' other Lew Griffin novels. How this series could slip so far under the radar is beyond me.
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