A pretty good mystery set in a quirky manner that got a little boring to me, but overall it was fun. ( )

Claire DeWitt is in trouble. Someone is trying to kill her, and, given her relationship with the cops, she determines to find the person herself. It turns into a deep dive into her past and the many unanswered questions that exist there. We knew that at some point, she needed to face the event that made her, the disappearance of her friend/sister Tracey during their teens. Spoiler alert: given Claire, and Gran, the answers prove elusive, so if you want anything definitive, this will disappoint. Still, given that she's taking the hard boiled tropes and incorporating them into this modern story with a female POV. ( )

3.5 stars, and recommended to those who love mystery novels, and don’t mind drug use. ( )

Not being a regular reader of mysteries I picked up The Infinite Blacktop after reading a review for the book. No one beats Claire DeWitt she is the world's greatest detective (self-proclaimed). Her world is filled with cases like the Case of the Wilted Rose and the Case of the Emerald Peacock. It seems like a grown-up Nacy Drew world. Well, Nacy Drew who dated Cid Vicous. The book is a mix of gritty reality and childhood detective heroes. ( )

In The Infinite Blacktop, Sara Gran’s third Claire DeWitt novel, someone has rammed Claire’s car off the road in Oakland, California, and she’s convinced that she’s the only one who can solve the mystery of who wants her dead. Recovering quickly from serious injuries, Claire is soon giving chase to her assailant, a man driving a Lincoln: a chase that takes her to Las Vegas. Another thread of the story flashes back to 1985 Brooklyn, New York, with teenage Claire and her friends Kelly and Tracy solving crimes in their free time between classes, until, that is, Tracy goes missing, leaving no clue behind to her whereabouts. The third thread takes us to 1999. Claire has just arrived in California following the death of her mentor, Constance Darling, and, in order to accumulate enough working hours to obtain her California PI license, takes on the cold case of a murdered painter named Merritt Underwood. Claire’s methods are unconventional. A follower of the French detective Jacques Silette, who, in his ground-breaking but obscure book Detection, advocates reliance on intuition and one’s own senses over forensic evidence, Claire works alone, trusts almost no one, and shuns the plodding evidence-based methods of the police. The action proceeds at breakneck speed, with lots of blood, violent confrontations, and situations in which Claire proves someone wrong and herself right, makes connections that no one has previously made, and finds answers that nobody else has been able to find. Ultimately, the three strands of the story begin to weave together, though at the end we’re still left with a few questions. The novel is elegantly structured, and though the story has a fractured feel, it is not overly challenging to follow. Claire’s cockiness takes some getting used to, particularly her self-designation as “The world’s best detective.” She is jaded and cynical and frequently comes across as arrogant, but she gets results and who can argue with that? Some plot elements strain credibility and Claire is resourceful almost beyond belief. To be fair though, the entire novel seems to take place in a world elevated above the plain of everyday human experience where the rest of us reside, so in that sense the author can be forgiven for indulging in a few excesses. Undeniably entertaining, The Infinite Blacktop is the product of a sophisticated and searching intelligence. But don’t be surprised if you find yourself with raised eyebrows now and again. ( )