Everyone Burns (Time, Blood and Karma, Book One) - John Dolan
Everyone burns says Buddha, and that certainly applies to this brilliant reinvention of the noir detective mystery thriller. Move over Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane, we now have John Dolan who sets a small Thailand island, sorry for that, on fire with political intrigue, grisly serial murders, unfaithful wives and husbands, gangsters, bent cops and just about the sleaziest detective ever. Said detective is David Braddock, down on his luck with work and women, who spends his time dirtying his hands and soul with the unsavoury aspects of humanity.
But when the chief of police invites Braddock, well not really inviting, more a stern demand or you will be deported kind of request, to help solve a grisly series of murders, the detective is thrust into a situation that could very well find his own body lying in a side street with its throat slit wide open.
Braddock is way beyond sleaze, in fact he makes sleaze the new black with his love 'em and leave 'em philosophy, but then surprises with his genuine acts of kindness such as restoring at his own expense an old man's eyesight. This Braddock is one helluva conundrum surrounded by an assortment of human detritus which he manipulates, cajoles and bends to at whim to suit whatever agenda suits him best.
Does Braddock solve the murder case - I ain't gonna tell you, so there! Read this slimy FIVE STAR GUMSHOE PIECE OF PULP FICTION and if you know how to whistle BLOW!