Chinatown Angel
A Mystery
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Finalist for the Shamus Award for Best First Private Eye Novel!
A. E. Roman's debut is a fast, fun read offering an authentic, vibrant look at New York City and the wide variety of people who make up its streets, bodegas, and penthouses.
Chico Santana is broke and brokenhearted after his wife, Ramona, leaves him. On New Year's Eve, he comes out of his self-imposed seclusion and runs into an old friend from St. Mary's Home for Boys, a member of "The Dirty Dozen." Albert Garcia is now a waiter and a wannabe filmmaker, tangled up with rising film star Kirk Atlas and his wealthy, eccentric family. On learning Chico's a PI, Atlas hires him to track down his cousin Tiffany, a beautiful Chinese-Cuban-American girl who has packed up and left her family, sending letters saying she doesn't want to be found. It seems like easy dough, which Chico could use.
But on the night he gets the job, Atlas's Brazilian maid falls from the rooftop of her apartment in Queens. Albert and everyone else insists it was a suicide, but Chico has a bad feeling. His search for Tiffany is soon thwarted by other family members, and more disturbing and sinister details come to light. Although Chico's being paid good money to look the other way, he's driven to uncover the truth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A plausible, fast-moving plot propels Roman's refreshing debut, set in present-day New York City. Chico Santana, an engaging, wisecracking PI, who's just beginning to pull himself together after his wife, Ramona, threw him out, takes on a routine case to track down a teenage girl that turns out to be anything but. Suspicious of the men who retain him, childhood friend Albert Garcia and B-movie actor-producer Kirk Atlas, Santana hooks up with their attractive servant, Pilar Menendez, only to see her pushed off the roof of her Astoria apartment building shortly after he leaves her. Santana's report of this crime leads to his abduction by Atlas's creepy father, a wealthy pervert reminiscent of Chinatown's Noah Cross. Roman has a nice satirical touch (e.g., Ramona once dragged Santana to "a mixed media thing based on the music in the movie The Taking of Pelham One Two Three"). Fans of Reed Farrel Coleman's Moe Prager will find a lot to like.