I've waited a long time for this.

I’m a slow reader. I can’t zoom through novels; nothing would stick. And for some reason, even though writing is my career of choice, I feel guilty sitting down to read a book. Which is one reason audiobooks are so great.

I can “read” while I:

-go on a walk

-fold laundry

-brush my teeth

-make lunch

-drive to the library

Etc.

I check out audiobooks from the library. The library is a great resource! Especially if you live in a big city with a robust library system. Which I don’t, but still. It’s the best “subscription service” I’ve come across for audiobooks.

Really listening to a book takes practice though. If your attention goes anywhere else for too long, you might need to hit the “go back 15 seconds” button more than a few times. But with practice, it can be done.

I just finished listening to a book that is one of my new all-time favorites. The story needs to settle in me for a while longer, like letting the dust settle before I can see exactly what I think of it. But it’s good. Really good. And it’s first in a series, lucky me.

The narrator was great (which can make or break a book, as you may know from experience). I guess I want to point out that I listened to it insead of read it because listening, while resulting in the same outcome (you consumed the book), can sometimes get you there by a different path. Maybe I wouldn’t like the book if I read it … but I seriously doubt it.

Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran is a hot mess of a masterpiece.

Finally I’ve found another one. They are few and far between.

I believe Ms. Gran is around the same age as me, and I pegged her for GenX before I ever looked up her birthday. She gets me. She knew I’d love a story and character who reads like Hunter Thompson and Raymond Chandler and Sue Grafton all got smooshed together and stuffed into an Elmore Leonard book. (Please note that Sue Grafton is the only female example I can come up with for this style of writing. If you know of another one, I hope you’ll tell me about her. Oh, I probably need to read Sarah Paretsky. Okay, she’s next on my list. But the library doesn’t seem to have her audiobooks so I’ll get to her when I get to her.)

Claire DeWitt says she’s the world’s best detective, and I believe her. She’s a classic noir character. She is messed up, y’all. This type of character is nothing new of course, but in the world of genre fiction, where I often hang out for my job as an editor, and for research to find comparable authors to my own books, Claire is a rare bird indeed. The closest I can think of is the Kinsey Millhone character written by Sue Grafton. They both cut their own hair, don’t care about clothes, and just don’t give a rat’s patootie if you like them or not. In fact they’d prefer if you didn’t.

Most female detectives or female main characters in current mystery sub-genres are lipstick-wearing, pump-wearing hot girls, who catch the bad guys in between manicures or learning how to control their newly discovered witch powers. Perhaps (okay, most likely) this is an unfair statement for me to make, since I’m a slow reader and haven’t read a ton of books. But I look at covers and I check out prospective reads at the library and I read a lot of blurbs, all with the hope that I’ll find a book—a character—that will satisfy my desire to see myself in them.

Not that I’m too much like Claire DeWitt. I haven’t done a ton of drugs and I didn’t drop out of high school or kill anyone. But I get her. I get her more than I get the lipstick detectives. Maybe it’s from being part of that first generation of Latch Key Kids. We have a sort of cynicism about the way things work that can’t be undone by leggy young ladies who have super hot boyfriends.

As soon as I’ve pondered this first Claire DeWitt story a little longer, I’ll dive into the second book in the series. But I’m not in a rush. These rare occurrences of literary deliciousness deserve to be savored.

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