My Darling Detective (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781328916273)

"[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 fianc馥 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

Author: Howard Norman
ISBN-10: 1328916278
ISBN-13: 9781328916273
Publisher: Mariner Books
Language: English
Published: 03/20/2018
Pages: 256
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 0.80d