The Darkest Game

February 1, 2022
A cunning killer cuts a murderous swath through the LA art world. A brief, brooding prologue, in which the narrator describes a murky murder and muses over the savagery of a Hollywood night, ignites a simmering undercurrent for LAPD Detective Tully Jarsdel's third noir appearance as it rolls slowly into the centerpiece crime. The learned Tully, dubbed the "professor detective" by the LA Times, and Morales, his rough, righteous partner, commiserate over the unjustly light sentence for the killing of a young child before leaving the courtroom to return to Hollywood Station, where they're soon sent back out to the scene of a brutal murder. Dean Burken, a curator at the Huntington Library and Museum, has been shot several times and, in a telling display of overkill, brutally beaten. The leisurely plot unfolds along traditional lines, with methodical interviews of the handful of "persons of interest" broken up by elaborate banter between the two detectives. The rogues' gallery of suspects is as quirky and colorful as anything in Hammett or Chandler, and Schneider's plot, while linear, is full of surprises. Tully's poignant backstory follows his efforts as caretaker to Baba, his brilliant but declining old father. The murder of a prime suspect at first seems to complicate the case until a witness steps forward to name the killer, only to meet the same fate. Throughout, Morales' brusque, slangy dialogue plays nicely against Tully's stylish, erudite speech. Schneider's choice of backdrop gives him carte blanche to pepper his tale with historic and artistic tidbits about both the collection and the institution itself. Juicy prose redolent of classic noir, with contemporary twists.

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February 7, 2022
The murder of Dean Burken, found shot to death at home in Laurel Canyon, drives Schneider’s smart if discursive third outing for Det. Tully Jarsdel of the LAPD (after 2021’s What Waits for You). Since Burken, who managed donations at Pasadena’s Huntington Library, was an abrasive, polarizing figure, Jarsdel—a would-be academic turned homicide detective—has lots of suspects, including Ellery Keating, a Huntington board member. After Keating turns up dead on Catalina Island, Jarsdel gets on the trail of a self-styled band of pirates, a massive real estate deal in Newport Beach, and a 19th-century journal from a California settler that could lead to a gold mine. Assured prose and distinctive characters help compensate for the tenuous through line connecting these disparate elements to Burken’s murder and the many lengthy if astute asides on such topics as the museum business, the city’s Persian population (Jarsdel’s father emigrated from Iran), L.A. history (including, notably, the genocide of the region’s indigenous people), and the moral challenge of police work in general. This flawed but deeply intelligent novel will reward thoughtful readers. Agent: Eve Attermann, WME.

April 15, 2022
Good thing Joseph Schneider is a crackerjack crime novelist. As readers of his quirky first novel, One Day You'll Burn (2020), know, he writes more asides, mini-essays, and one-liners into his fiction than the chattiest Victorian ever dared. And they're usually fascinating enough to keep plot-centered mystery readers from abandoning ship. Learn the origin of the word ""buccaneer."" Ponder the possibility that brain scans can reveal sociopathy. And enjoy the story. LA homicide detective Marcus Jarsdale of Burn is back, this time tackling two murders at a prestigious library, art museum, and garden. His interrogations of staffers have an unusual layer, as arty types with strong sense of self-importance encounter a cop who's a former classics professor and can correct their misinformation about Emperor Vespasian. There's gunplay, too, along with misdirection and facts presented as clues that may be just . . . facts. (Watch out for that blue chip and that H.G. Wells novel lying about.) Above all, relish the beautiful writing, as when water is described as ""the dazzling blue of a gas flame."" And ponder the distinction between ""acronyms"" and ""initialisms.

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