Negative Girl
Martin Wade is the former hard-living, barely-made-it-out-alive lead singer of a punk band, now in recovery and working as a private investigator in a similarly bedraggled city in upstate New York. He’s training an assistant, Valerie, who has abruptly returned to town, covered in tattoos and scarred, hiding something. When a young woman hires Martin to follow her estranged father to see if he is still using drugs, Martin is thrown off his game to learn the father is his former bandmate. As his life comes back to haunt him, his demons arrive too.
This noir, with lots of alternative rock references, builds momentum slowly then throws the reader for loop after loop. If you like noir, and especially if you like alternative music, you’ll love this edgy suspense novel.
Thank you to NetGalley and Datura Books for an opportunity to read an advance review copy.