by James Sallis
First published 2014
A stranger arrives at a New Orleans hospital carrying one of Lew Griffin's published novels and insisting he is Lewis Griffin. Griffin is a black detective who has spent his career tracking down missing people, but he lost his own son somewhere along the way. The impostor's appearance forces Griffin to examine his fractured past while he works a current case involving three missing young men. Griffin moves between his roles as investigator, teacher, and writer, but the boundaries between his identities blur as he digs deeper. The false Griffin becomes a mirror reflecting back all the pieces of himself that Lew has misplaced over the years. His search for the missing young men parallels his search for the missing parts of himself. The case pulls him through the streets of New Orleans and into memories he has tried to forget. Griffin must decide which version of himself is real and whether he can recover what he has lost.
Genres: literary-fiction, african-american, mystery, detective
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: New Orleans
293 pages · Kindle Edition · No Exit