Mystery Girl by David Gordon

Morning, everyone! Today I'm a stop on the TLC blog tour for David Gordon's Mystery Girl.

Sam's wife has left him. She has her reasons, though, and says that it's the only way she thinks he'll ever change. The first order of business is getting a job, which he does manage to do pretty immediately (impressing her at their first couple's therapy session). The job in question is that of assistant to the odd and housebound Solar Lansky, PI. He even assigns Sam his very first case on the same day as the interview: to follow Ramona Doon. But within days, Ramona is dead. Rather than admit defeat, Solar sets Sam to the task of uncovering Ramona's past in hopes that it might lead to the truth of her death. Soon Sam is embroiled in a strange tale of suicide, avant garde filmmaking, and even devil worship. 

I have very mixed feelings about Mystery Girl. There are various aspects of the book that I really enjoyed - the humor and Gordon's particular way of describing things in particular. It was very easy to be drawn into Gordon's prose. On the other hand, Gordon's style did strike me as being a bit in the vein of Chuck Palahniuk, which I see as being shocking simply for the sake of it rather than moving the story along. (Palahniuk has a pretty passionate fan base that would likely disagree with me.)

The mystery in Mystery Girl is interesting and while I'm not very well read in classic noir, I am familiar enough with it and the big names to see the obvious influence here. I could also very plainly see the appreciation of and sort of homage to Hitchcock's Vertigo.

Mystery Girl is smart and quite funny in a very twisted way. Fans of dark comedy and mystery will enjoy this latest from Gordon for sure, but the book definitely isn't for everyone.

Rating: 3/5

To see more stops on the tour, check out the official TLC tour page here.

For more on David Gordon and his work, you can visit his website here.