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the complete review - fiction

Little Girl Lost

by
Richard Aleas

general information | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B : enjoyable, if a bit rough and predictable

See our review for fuller assessment.

The complete review's Review:

       Little Girl Lost is narrated by not-yet-thirty year-old New York P.I. John Blake. He's shocked to read in the newspaper that a high school flame of his, who'd headed west for college with the ambition of becoming a doctor ten years earlier was found murdered on the roof of a local strip club -- where she'd been working.
       Blake can't believe that the Miranda Sugarman could have come to this, and the private investigator in him can't help but ask 'Why ?' -- so that's what he does, investigating her murder. Leo, his boss -- a former cop who has seen it all and knows better -- warns him off, but Blake can't be stopped.
       His investigation lets him explore this sordid milieu: he does meet a stripper with a heart who becomes his sidekick, but otherwise the people he meets are pretty unpleasant -- and dangerous. As he gets closer to the truth he takes quite a few beatings and finds himself in some pretty uncomfortable situations. And Miranda isn't the only one who winds up murdered.
       There are quite a few layers to the story: beyond the stripping drugs and large amounts of money are involved, and personalities also leave their very strong marks as love and honour played a role in what happened. In trying to figure out what happened, Blake has to reconstruct how Miranda got there, and he traces her descent into this business -- which turns out not to be as simple as he first thinks.
       Aleas offers a decent P.I. procedural -- and fun tour of the stripping industry -- though the biggest plot twists are too obvious, telegraphed quite a bit too far away. Still, the personalities and confrontations are enjoyable and fairly well drawn, and the book moves along nicely. Blake does get himself beaten up a couple of times too often, and occasionally the narrative threatens to get a bit ponderous as Aleas tries to make the material a bit more weighty than it can bear, but overall it's a solid, enjoyable thriller.

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Links:

• Hard Case Crime publicity page

• Bleeker Books
• Collected Miscellany
• Craig's Book Club
• ExLibris Reviews
• The Hippo
• Harriet Klausner
• MostlyFiction.com
• Noir Originals
• This Week

• Profile in Columbia College Today

• Fifty-to-One (as Charles Ardai)
• Songs of Innocence

• See Index of Mysteries and Thrillers
• Other books from Hard Case Crime

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About the Author:

       Richard Aleas is actually Charles Ardai.

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© 2005-2008 the complete review

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