I can’t decide about this. Some parts of it are good and some parts are just mediocre. I can’t decide if the author is going for comedie noir or just plain noir and I think he should definitely have made up his mind before committing himself to paper. Or perhaps he was going for the former and ended up at the later because he’s not quite a good enough writer. And – OK, I’ll admit I am a snob – but I did have a negative impression from the get-go when the writer had the homicide detective refer to the murder victim as the “corpus delecti,” which any experienced homicide detective would know does NOT refer to the dead body itself but to the “body of the crime” – the whole of the evidence that establishes that a crime has been committed. A corpse may be part of the corpus delecti, but is not the corpus delecti itself unless a detective is just really, really lousy at his job. And – OK, further evidence I am a word snob – I also was put off by his including a network news reporter who had questions about “mutilizations.” Seriously – did nobody proofread the guy?

I give it a hardy—wa wa.