My Darling Detective
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- $149.00
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- $149.00
Descripción editorial
“[An] ingeniously plotted novel . . . Norman knows how to weave an enticing and satisfying mystery, one tantalizing thread at a time.” — New York Times Book Review
A witty, engrossing homage to noir, from National Book Award finalist Howard Norman
Jacob Rigolet, soon-to-be former assistant to a wealthy art collector, looks up from his seat at an auction—his mother, former head librarian at the Halifax Free Library, is walking almost casually up the aisle. Before a stunned audience, she flings an open jar of ink at master photographer Robert Capa’s Death on a Leipzig Balcony. Jacob’s police detective fiancée is assigned to the ensuing interrogation.
My Darling Detective delivers a fond nod to classic noir, as Jacob’s understanding of the man he has always assumed to be his father unravels against the darker truth of Robert Emil, a police officer suspected of murdering two Jewish residents during an upswing of anti-Semitism in 1945. The denouement, involving a dire shootout and an emergency delivery—it’s the second Rigolet to be born in the Halifax library in a three decades—is Howard Norman at his uncannily moving best.
“Norman works with an offhand ease and grace . . . Whimsy is balanced by moments of powerfully evoked realism.” — Washington Post
“An unconventional, lively literary mystery.” — Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Norman's (Next Life Might Be Kind) latest novel opens with Canadian Jacob Rigolet witnessing his mother, Nora, vandalize a famous World War II photograph at a Halifax art auction in 1977. Nora, having escaped from the Nova Scotia Rest Hospital, is subsequently arrested and interviewed by Jacob's fianc e, Halifax police detective Martha Crauchet. Martha's investigation reveals that Jacob's father is in the photo taken by Robert Capa on Apr. 20, 1945, in Leipzig, Germany and was killed the next day. The investigation's real surprise, however, is the link it uncovers between Nora and Robert Emil, a Jew-hating Halifax cop and the prime suspect in two unsolved 1945 murders. Martha and her two detective partners reopen the cold cases, never suspecting how the connections will affect Jacob. Emil is still alive, as arrogant and shifty as ever, and after a tense police interrogation, arrest, and subsequent escape from custody, he vows to kill everyone involved in the case. The result is a scary stand-off in the Halifax public library. Jacob and Martha are delightful characters, young lovers unraveling a complex and very personal mystery. This is a crowd-pleasing old school mystery novel.)
