The Infinite Blacktop

The third boon in Gran's metaphysical, gritty series (after Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead and Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway) begins with a hit-and-run in 2011 Oakland. Someone is trying to kill Claire DeWitt. Injured, she evades the authorities and heads to Las Vegas, looking for answers to this new mystery and the disappearance of her friend in 1986. Along the way, she recalls a cold case in 1995 Los Angeles, tangles with other detectives and underworld characters, and ingests vast quantities of drugs while contemplating life's big questions through the lens of a girl detective comic book and the writings of a French detective-philosopher. The story begins rather disjointedly, but hits its stride when Gran drops some of the high quirk and focuses on the intricacies and delusions of the art world in the 1995 case. The artists' search for truth and meaning mirror her own.