Review: THE LONG-LEGGED FLY by James Sallis

“Maybe the best parts of out lives are always over. Maybe happiness, contentment, are things we only recollect through filters of time, elusive ghosts forever behind us.”

The Long-Legged Fly is on par with the great American detective novels which embody and define noir down to its seedy and desperate core (think James Crumley, or Ken Bruen with a sprinkle of George Pelecanos). Drowning sorrows, starving the soul of oxygen, Griffin is the true tainted protagonist. Seeking love and ones lost, solace and a time to mean something, Griffin meanders from one case to another slowly evolving into those he is entrusted to guard against. I love the way the cases are fragmented by time yet linked by some deftly placed plot threads. 

Spanning four distinct periods, 1964, 1970, 1987, and 1990, PI Lew Griffin is as shady as the streets he stumbles, side stepping blood splatter throughout the underside of New Orleans. The book is as much about Griffin’s battle with his personal demons as it is the missing people he’s tasked to find – I couldn’t read this fast enough, a must read for fans of raw and realistic detective fiction.