The Return of Friday Reads

One good thing about getting hit with the supercold currently plaguing Los Angeles is you get time to read and nobody bothers you for fear of walking into the miasma of germs that follows you around like Pig Pen’s dust cloud. “No, sorry, I can’t possibly do the dishes, I must stay here on the couch in this blanket fort.”

So I was able to read my advance copy of Hart Hanson’s The Seminarian without interruption, and it is a goddamn delight. Hanson is the guy behind Bones, which ran for 12 seasons on Fox, and The Finder, which I loved and did not run nearly long enough. I’d already pre-ordered the book based on Hanson’s previous novel, The Driver, but this is actually even better.

Xavier “Priest” Priestly is a former seminarian who left the priesthood when his faith was shaken. His dad, he discovered, had been supplementing the family’s income with regular bank robberies. After he was caught, Priest’s concept of right and wrong was a little mangled. So he turned his abnormally high IQ and weird people skills to investigating, becoming a sought-after PI for law firms in Los Angeles.

When the book starts, he’s living exactly the life he wants. He’s steps from Venice Beach. He works when he feels like it. He fishes and surfs and swims. The only drama in his world comes from his best friend Dusty, a security consultant/stunt performer who asks him to look for her girlfriend, a sex worker who has gone missing.

Then, within pages, Priest has been attacked and nearly kidnapped, drugged into a coma, and saddled with a kid he never knew he had.

Life is no longer uncomplicated.

It would be a disservice to all the plot twists that Hanson manages to throw at the reader to describe much more, but Priest has to figure out where the missing woman is, who’s trying to murder him, and who he can trust. It’s funny even in the midst of the violence, and often violently funny. But the best part was finding a protagonist who is like Richard B. Parker’s Spenser or Gregory McDonald’s Fletch — charming, funny, and likable even when he’s kind of a jerk. In a time of too many grimly bland Reacher clones — ex-Navy SEALs/Special Forces who only know one thing, and that’s killing, etc. — Priest is actually a hell of a lot of fun to hang with. He’s unapologetically himself, and it’s been a long time since I’ve read a new PI novel this surprising and fun.

A Secret About A Secret by Peter Spiegelman — I think I recommended this when I first read it, but I can’t remember and frankly don’t care, because I just re-read it, and I don’t think it got nearly enough attention when it hit shelves in 2022. In some ways, it’s a classic whodunit — a representative of the security services shows up at a remote campus of a tech company to solve the murder of a researcher. She was vibrant, challenging, and on the rise — and is now very dead. The agent uncovers buried secrets and hidden agendas. All pretty normal stuff for a mystery — but this one takes place in a world that is not quite our own. The security services inspire dread and fear. The investigator, Agent Myles, was trained to inhuman lengths of pain and endurance, and he terrifies people with just a few words. I kept thinking of it as a crime set in a totalitarian society like Orwell described in 1984; everyone has more or less settled into acceptance of the nature of their government and their world. But the violence and repression hide right behind the everyday, and could emerge at any moment. Myles does his best to be human, even compassionate, but he’s a weapon of forces larger than himself. And the murder threatens to expose hidden agendas and shifting alliances. In all, it is a masterful new take on the genre, and wonderfully written as well as inventive and smart. I sincerely hope we see more of Myles and his world.

ONSCREEN 

I finally watched Nobody, starring Bob Odenkirk as a schlubby suburban dad who turns out to be a former government killer. That’s not much of a spoiler, because it’s revealed in the trailer. It’s basically another entry in the genre I like to call You’ll All Be Sorry, where that one harmless-looking guy turns out to be the One Guy With Whom You Should Not Fuck, which includes John Wick, Death Wish, Red, The Equalizer, and so many more. I was leery of watching it for a long time because as much as I love those movies, I’m not sure suburban dads need to be told they’re a secret badass just waiting for the right trigger to show everybody their skills. That’s the secret of the YABS genre: it’s a fantasy, as much as Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. We’d all like to think of ourselves as the nice person quietly suffering the insults of other people — until we’re just pushed too far. That seems about as healthy as a crack cocaine habit, and we already have enough road rage incidents.

But Nobody is smart enough to play around with the tropes, and to make Hutch, the former secret agent, a sympathetic character without hiding the fact that he was waiting for an excuse to hurt people, not a reason. Hutch is not a victim; he never was. From there, it’s a whole Looney Tunes escapade against the Russian mob, those reliable punching bags, and it’s over-the-top enough that you can laugh at the massive bodily damage being done. If you’re that kind of guy, which I am.

Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul (both of which included Odenkirk) did a better job of puncturing the idea that enough resentment and anger will turn you into Batman. Nobody, however, is a lot more fun. The editing, writing, and music cues are all smart and sharp and witty. And Odenkirk is great in the role, making it just realistic enough that he’s shaking off the cobwebs when he gets into his first big fight and imbuing his interactions with his family with what seems like a genuine love and sadness. He doesn’t want to let them down. But the temptation is just too much. Some dads go out for Poker Night. Some dads work out their depression by killing Russian mobsters by the dozens.

FRIENDS AND WELL-WISHERS

My friend Ben H. Winters’ new book Big Time comes out next week. Pre-order your copy if you haven’t already. Who are you to argue with Publishers Weekly and the New York Times, which both loved it?

Another friend, Gwenda Bond, also has a new book out, The Frame-Up. It’s a magical heist novel, featuring the daughter of the world’s greatest art thief, who needs to get her estranged mother’s old crew back together and back into the game for one last job. Gwenda’s books are always a treat, and this is my favorite idea of hers yet.

And if you missed my pal Daryl Gregory’s novel Revelator in hardback, it was just released in paperback. It’s a story of gods, monsters, and family secrets. Haunting and, as always with Daryl, just beautifully written.

That’s it for now. Your reviews and recommendations are welcome. And as always, thanks for reading.