Catalina Eddy (2017) by Daniel Pyne. This is a brilliant crime novel told in three novellas. They are set in three different settings about 20 years apart with different casts of characters. All are set in Southern California.
Part 1: The Big Empty, June 1954. The big news of the day is the H-Bomb test on Bikini Island. Rylan Lovely, an L.A. private eye gets a message from a woman to meet with her about a possible case. But when he gets to her apartment he finds a dead woman and a couple of cops waiting for him. The cops know he didn’t do the crime, but then they didn’t know the dead woman was Lovely’s estranged wife. He and her had been apart for seven years.
The following story involves a preacher for a new-age Cosmic Church and a rocket scientist who likes to get rough with his dates. Lovely’s wife worked for the first and was mixed up with the second, but Lovely’s investigation is hindered by the appearance of federal agents trying to protect the scientist and willing to give up the wife as a scapegoat for several other crimes along the way.
This is a salute to the hard-boiled genre popular in the 40’s and 50’s and plays true to it throughout. It turns out Lovely has a lot more in his history than just being a WWII vet, including involvement in OSS operations and other clandestine work.
And keep an eye out for his lighter.
Part 2: Losertown, June 1987. The Feds and San Diego’s prosecutor’s office are reacting to the Reagan White House’s demands for the “War on Drugs”. Rolling busts are the tool being used. A series of small crimes leading rapidly up the supply chain to net the bigger fish, all in a night’s work. Sounds easy on paper, but the reality is moer of a long slog with unseen complications along the way. When an Egyptian, a “possible” drug dealer, is pulled in, he gives up his supplier. He is all too happy to tell the cops whatever they want to hear, be it the truth or not. He names Nick “Stix” Mahrez, a one time drug dealer, gone straight years before.
The new U.S. Prosecutor wants him and is pushing hard on the lead prosecutor, Gil Kirby. He is forced by her to do deals which he, and any sane D.A., would never do, but the White House demands results, no matter what. And the good intentions of the people of the U.S. are cast aside, bargains are broken, the laws are stretched, all in the name of results.
Part 3: Portuguese Bend, June 2016. Finn is an introverted crime scene photographer with something of a photographic memory when it comes to his work. One night in a cop bar, Finn witnesses sees Riley, an attractive woman who is having a bad break-up with her boy friend, a police detective. Finn, despite all odds, somehow manages to go and talk with her. For whatever her own reasons, she goes home with him. There in his apartment/photographic studio and photo display area, she becomes wrapped up in the latest crime scene photos. They show a young woman who has just killed her husband.
Riley, in reality an undercover cop, sees the photos as evidence that the woman, Willa Ko, did not shoot the husband.
As the story develops we see how Riley’s on-going investigation gets tied to the murder, how her ex-boyfriend and his detective partner play a big roll in the situation, and finally how Finn manages to make some sense of the crime and his life.
These three tales have subtle connections, strings which thread them together but are mere background detail, never overpowering the plots. The book is well crafted with three different styles of telling. These strongly defined characters some to life in the best possible manner.
And the title refers to a swirling frontal weather patter that sets into SoCal almost every June. It brings in depression, mood swings, and mayhem. It is not some slick dude who rides in a pimped caddy and has a gold display tooth, despite what I was thinking when I picked up the book.
Catalina Eddy is far better than it has any right to be, and I can’t recommend it enough. ( )