This is the novel I read on the return trip from New York. It's a lot darker than Solomon vs. Lord, as you'd expect if you'd read Clea's Moon, the first novel in the John Ray Horn series.Horn, as you may recall, is the former cowboy star, down on his luck after serving a prison sentence for assault, who's eking out a living as a bill collector for his old movie sidekick, Mad Crow. As in the previous book, the past comes calling, and once again a murder in the present is tied to what happened years ago. (I guess you could say that the series is taking on something of a Ross Mcdonald aspect.) This time the old crime is a murder that has a strong resemblance to the notorious Fatty Arbuckle case. Horn is drawn into things when he meets one of his former co-stars. She's murdered, and Horn is driven to find out why. And to find the killer.
As was the case in Clea's Moon, the book is filled with great local color from the L. A. of the late '40s. Horn and Mad Crow are complex and compelling characters, and I'm going to have to find the third book in the series now to see what they're up to in that one.
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