The best stories are the kind that linger in your mind long after you've finished them. For me, DOPE by Sara Gran was that kind of story.

Josephine "Joe" Flannigan is just the girl next door--if you happen to live in Hell's Kitchen, that is. Joe grew up there under the not-so-watchful eye of a single mother, so it was up to Joe to look after herself and her kid sister, Shelley. Both girls end up falling in with the wrong crowd and getting addicted to heroin, but pulling themselves out of "the life" in very different ways. When the story begins, it's 1950 and Joe is making a living picking pockets and "boosting" (to use the parlance of that time) jewelry and other valuables from stores. Shelley has become a successful model and aspiring actress.

When a suburban couple hires Joe to find their wayward daughter in the streets from which she came, it looks like easy money. But the investigation turns out to be a lot more complicated than she expects. And the further Joe delves into the matter, the more trouble she unwittingly creates for herself.

Read entire review at http://thebookgrrl.blogspot.com/2008/... ( )

http://tinyurl.com/4o5zyc

Talk about minimalist writing. This book is written in the best hard-as-nails, noir style. And for that reason alone it's engaging. You can't quite tell whether you should like the protagonist too much, much the same way Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder is an enigmatic protagonist. (Goodness, don't they get bored going to bars and sitting in their rooms, smoking?)

I did figure out the denouement early on. It's very hard to write mysteries without giving away the bad guy (who seems to be a good guy), so that's not a negative assessment.

The real eyebrow raiser is the ending. I will give nothing away, except to say that I believe I've never read another ending like it. ( )

An ex-junkie is recruited to help a wealthy couple find their "dope fiend" daughter in 1950s New York. She picks up the trail and stays on it, in spite of several dizzying twists. All very good until the ending, where the final twist leaves things hanging. I'm all for a bit of ambiguity, but this was a monster-truck sized load of uncertainty. ( )

This was really good. I thought I had it figured out only to realize I didn't. I like books that keep me guessing! ( )

Not as good as "Come Closer"; but a good read anyway. I'm just not a fan of noir. ( )