The Bad Kitty Lounge
Michael Wiley
Minotaur, Mar 2 2010, $24.99
ISBN: 9780312593001
In Chicago Greg Samuelson goes ballistic when he learns his wife Amy is having an affair with Eric Stone. Fuming, he burns Stone’s car. Soon afterward, at the Holy Trinity Church someone shoots Greg in the face and kills his boss, Sister Judy Terrano, the Virginity Nun; under her tattoo of a cat was written with a marker “Bad Kitty”.
Greg, who previously hired private investigator Joe Kozmarski to catch his wife in the act, rehires the sleuth to make inquiries into who shot him. As Joe digs and finds more corpses, long time civil rights activist William DuBuclet demands he drops the case or else. Stone tries to hire Joe to conduct surveillance on DuBuclet as the case ties back to the 1960s Bad Kitty Lounge where teens met to hear music, smoke weed and use dope, and have sex.
This a superb Chicago Noir (see The Last Striptease) as Joe deals with a client he dropped after the BMW arson incident at a time he considers leaving the Windy City with his two dependents, his mom and his young cousin. Joe tells the tale from the opening inferno over egg fu young until the final wrap up though at times his escapades seem over the top of the Sears Tower. The audience will enjoy this fabulous investigative thriller as the spins and twists keep Joe and the reader off kilter throughout.
Harriet Klausner
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