I have struggled to rate this book. As a study of a man on the edge struggling with drink and violence but staying on the right side of the law it is very good, lew griffin is a new Orleans private eye who in 1964 investigates the disappearance of a poster girl for the civil rights movement.The investigation leads him to drink and we then leap to 1970, 1984, and 1990. The reader follows lew's highs and lows until at the end of the book he confronts more personal issues. The book is a very literary crime novel however as a mystery it lacks a plot which ultimately left me a little dissatisfied as i rattled to the end in this very readable book expecting loose ends to be tied together but they weren't. So don't read it if you are looking for plot driven thriller, but do read it if you are looking for an analysis of a troubled man and the issue of race in modern America.
I wanted to go to four stars as I am curious to read the rest of the series and hope that book1 is foundation for future great reads as it certainly demonstrates that as a genre crime writing can stand with the best literary writing.

I enjoyed this book very much and the reader, G. Valmont Thomas, is one of my favourites. Since it skips through the decades I'm curious about how this will be handled in the rest of the series.

I liked this book, albeit with some trepidation. I'm always concerned about white writers writing from the perspective of black characters. I'm not sure Sallis navigates it well (the first vignette had some cringeworthy moments, mostly because of a character who wasn't the protagonist) but maybe well enough. Otherwise, this is a very good book, soaked in the atmosphere of New Orleans (I felt like I was back in the city). Sallis has a good gift with dialogue and I liked how the cases enmeshed with the PI's life. That's a tough trick to pull off with some satisfaction but he does.

I started out loving this book, but by the end I was glad it was over. I did read it over a single night so maybe that has something to do with me losing interest. It's basically four short stories about a hardboiled-type black private in New Orleans set in four different time periods. The first couple of stories were very Raymond Chandler-esque, which I quite enjoyed, but the last two stories were too ponderous for my taste. I like my hardboiled detectives to be fast paced. The first story, set in 1964, seemed to be referencing Black Power activism, though I thought the setting was little early for that, but what would I know, I'm only the smartest person alive. I seem to have some kind of issue with white writers writing from the perspective of black characters. I don't know why, I never question men writing women or women writing men or gay writing straight or vice versa. When I read a white author writing from the perspective of a black person though, I just get a bit pulled out of the story looking for inauthenticity for some reason.

Satisfies the detective novel itch with a fresh perspective.

Lew Griffin is a drunk - you know what? Life drives you to it. He's a tough guy, a private eye and his on/off girlfriend's a hooker, which pretty much douses this andric story in testosterone's cheap cologne. Griffin is no dullard or thug; what self-disrespecting PI is? He's a lover of heavy weight literature, and he likes to name drop.

Lew's your drunk- depressed friend - the kind who likes to start talking philosophy, in French, half way down the bourbon bottle. Except given the right motivation, this detective will kick a guy so hard, his balls will go into orbit.

The story is sporadic and compartmentalised, with cases scattered between New Orleans atmospherics, Lew's non-specific inner woe, and a delicate lacings of interwoven theme - though you can join the dots yourself, you lazy bums. The job is tough, almost James Ellroy tough, and no one gets away clean. Lew works overtime clocking up the hardboiled born mots; as beautiful and perspicacious as they are despairing.

The story begins with Lew as a youngish man, impenetrable and unlikeable, it ends with him older wiser, more open, less fractured. Even less likeable, for all that he's grown and become respectable. The story and spartan style got under my skin, but the heavy on the macho bullshit rubbed me up wrong thanks to stubble burn. That the author also wrote Drive comes as no surprise.

If you like a modern noir, or if you'd like to see what a stripped down James Ellroy reads like, this is the detective story for you. If there were more New Orleans and less Lew Griffith, it might have been the story for me too.

Not your average crime tale at all. My first encounter with Sallis, and I have tucked him into the little appreciative corner occupied by crime writers who take the well-trodden path of noir-ish crime novel and nudge it along into somewhere unexpected. (Derek Raymond is another if slightly more twisted example) Note to self: Read more Sallis. There's something going on in there somewhere which might, just might, turn out to be kinda profound.

I didn't know before I started that PI Lew Griffin was black. Then I didn't find out until I'd finished that author James Sallis was white.

Maybe it doesn't matter, but I've read too many of Walter Mosley's books about Easy Rawlins, some of which share a historical setting with parts of this book, not to compare the two and be concerned about appropriation and authenticity.

Sure, Sallis is playing with narrative and storytelling, but I'm not sure that saves him. This was an unsettling read and I'm not sure if I shall try another.

I wanted a new author to try as an audiobook. Sallis had two things going for him - We have the whole series on talking book and at least the first one is short. Sometimes I get lost in long talking books because it takes me awhile to listen to them.

Lew Griffin, the protagonist, is a black man reviewing his life from the 60's through the 90's. This is not necessarily a good time to be African-American and it is definitely not a good time to be Lew Griffin. He is angry, frustrated and an alcoholic. He is also supposed to be finding several missing persons.

I can't really do justice to James Sallis' writing. The way he uses words, the knowledge he puts in Griffin's head, the way he turns a phrase all add up to more than the sum of these parts. I thought I was reading a simple mystery, but by the end I knew I had met a unique character. I don't want to give away the ending, but this book really startled me. I think I just stared at the road for five minutes thinking about the conclusion.

G. Valmont Thomas is the perfect reader for the book. I had not heard him read before and may be that is why I could accept him as Lew Griffin. I certainly hope he reads the rest of the series.

I recommend this book to those who like to discover lost treasures, to those who like being inside characters' brains, to folks who know New Orleans and to may be interested in unexpected plot twists.