Why I picked it: The Omaha Bookworm's read Mandel's first novel - we even had the opportunity to discuss the book with her over the telephone thanks to Lisa from Lit & Life (for setting up the call).
I have continued to read her novels, she has a very interesting writing style.
Synopsis: Gavin Sasaki is a promising young journalist in New York City, until he’s fired in disgrace following a series of unforgivable lapses in his work. It’s early 2009, and the world has gone dark very quickly; the economic collapse has turned an era that magazine headlines once heralded as the second gilded age into something that more closely resembles the Great Depression. The last thing Gavin wants to do is return to his hometown of Sebastian, Florida, but he’s drifting toward bankruptcy and is in no position to refuse when he’s offered a job by his sister, Eilo, a real estate broker who deals in foreclosed homes.
Eilo recently paid a visit to a home that had a ten-year-old child in it, a child who looks very much like Gavin and who has the same last name as Gavin’s high school girlfriend Anna, whom Gavin last saw a decade ago. Gavin—a former jazz musician, a reluctant broker of foreclosed properties, obsessed with film noir and private detectives—begins his own private investigation in an effort to track down Anna and their apparent daughter who have been on the run all these years from a drug dealer from whom Anna stole $121,000.
Type: Fiction
Quick Take: As mentioned above, Mandel's writing is amazing. She knows how to write a story, keeping the reader guessing, leading us on. This novel is part personal story, part mystery. Her readers have come to appreciate the many twists and turns she includes in a story.
I don't normally read mysteries, who dunnit's, where are they books.... but if you like this genre, please try reading a Mandel novel. If I'm going to compare her work to a movie, The Fugitive comes to mind. The Lola Quartet is an interesting story that leaves the reader thinking.
Rating: 3 stars
Source: Review Copy