** Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Romantic Comedy stars a writer for a disguised Saturday Night Live show (why don’t novels just use the names of real things?) who improbably starts a romance with a charming pop star. The first part of the book reads a bit like a documentary. There is a brief and sweet interlude at her stepfather’s house during the pandemic, then a fanciful sweeping off her feet in a Los Angeles mansion that reads a bit like a romance novel. I was not a fan but it’s well-written escapism and there are some funny and touching bits…

** Evergreen by Naomi Hirahara

Evergreen follows a Japanese-American nurse as she tries to figure out who killed one of her patients. The best part of the story is the setting: Los Angeles’s Japantown after WWII, as interned Japanese-Americans return from the camps where they were detained during the war and try to rebuild their lives. I thought that the plot was overly contrived, even sanitized to highlight the history, however.

** Strip Tees by Kate Flannery

The author of Strip Tees: A Memoir of Millennial Los Angeles took a job at American Apparel shortly after graduation and quickly fell into the craziness of its founder, its party culture, and the doubtful ethics of using employees as unpaid models. She does a great job of showing how easy it is to fall prey to an exploitative employer, especially when career opportunities are there for the taking.

** Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow stars two long-time friends who write a blockbuster video game and eventually create a successful company with a third partner, creating all kinds of sentimental complications on top of the pressure of running a company in that space. I found the origin story touching and well-told, but the lengthy descriptions of the games was boring for me (gamers would likely disagree with that assessment). The story also becomes less credible as it goes on–and can we please have one book that talks about someone very smart without their attending a Cambridge school?

** Vera Kelly: Lost and Found by Rosalie Knecht

I loved the earlier books in the series and Vera Kelly: Lost and Found was fine, but I did not think its plot was as captivating, or believable, as the ones in the other two. The heroine and her girlfriend travel to California for an obviously ill-advised meeting with the girlfriend’s father. Disaster ensues, including forced mental treatment.

** Blood Grove by Walter Mosley

Blood Grove starts with a strange story of possible murder told to a private detective, one that will take him to a community of veterans (this is 1969, so there are plenty of PTSD-addled veterans coming back from Vietnam) and brutal, shadowy interests. Much of the action is within the detective’s family and personal network, however, with lots of brutal beatings and murders on top of that.

*** Dodgers by Bill Beverly

Dodgers follows a teenaged LA gang member in LA to murder a witness in Wisconsin. To elude police, he and three other young men drive across the country and need to improvise at many points. Then, they predictably find trouble but what our hero chooses to do is not what we think he will. The road trip, the conflict with his younger, violent brother, his relationship with his alcoholic mother, the way he can take care of himself wherever he is are all described factually but with great emotional weight. It will make you sad, but hopeful.

*** The Holdout by Graham Moore

Ten years ago, a jury found a teacher not guilty of killing a fifteen-year old students, despite inappropriate texts between the two of them (but no body). In The Holdout, the jurors come back together for a reunion that focuses on how one of the jurors convinced the others to choose the not-guilty verdict, and one of them is killed, in her hotel room. The story unfolds with all the jurors’ secrets being exposed one by one, eventually resolving both murders, with many satisfying twists.

* Hi Five by Joe Ide

I had doubts from the start: investigating a murder in which the main suspect has multiple personalities has got to create a pretty ridiculous story line. Add rival gang, more guns than I can imagine brought together, and a favorite PI of mine, and you get Hi Five, a disaster of a book. Read the earlier installments, they really are better!

** Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson

 

I never quite know what to do with novels that are obviously fantasies: who could believe that a nine-year old child (the Frank of Be Frank With Me) dresses in morning coats, speaks in high falutin language, and has an extensive knowledge of classic movies — or that a book editor would send a round-the-clock nanny and housekeeper on an open-ended stay to help an author finish a book. But, on the other hand, many details such as the cruel school principal or the flaky handyman ring very true. Less drama and more detail would make the book much more enjoyable.