The Bad Kitty Lounge by Michael WileyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Full disclosure, I thought the first Joe Kozmarski book, The Last Striptease was fabulous and was completely robbed by Bad City, Bad Blood for the 2008 Shamus award for best first novel. Consequently, my expectations for this were very high, and so the 3-star review is perhaps less-than-objective. It was a decent novel, but it wasn't as good as the first one. (Ironically, the sequel to Bad City, Bad Blood was fabulous.)
This is a perfectly serviceable private eye novel. However, any private eye series lives and dies on the strength of the main character. In the last novel, I though that Joe Kazmarksi was both heroic and human, and that his interesting and imperfect relationship with his nephew was icing on a cake made out of car chases, shootouts, and good old-fashioned detective work. In this outing, the relationships just don't make as much sense, consequently they are less believable, and much less engaging. Based on the first novel, I didn't think the detectives maturing relationship with his nephew was believable, and based on the actions of the characters I didn't find the love-triangle aspects at all compelling.
How about the mystery? Well, it's pretty good. Michael Wiley has a fantastic flair for action. Both this and the Last Striptease had some fantastically cinematic action scenes, which I love, but in this book, they didn't really make sense or flow into the narrative of the mystery. Finally, *spoiler alert* he kills off (in and inexplicable and unrealistic fashion) what might have been the best PI sidekick since Hawk. What the $%^&, Michael Wiley?
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