I always enjoy a new Baldacci novel and I really like Aloysius Archer so I was looking forward to this one. I was not disappointed. Well, they got that right, thought Archer. But for a private eye, LA could be a fascinating study of human beings, and all their many foibles.

Private investigator and World War II veteran Aloysius Archer heads to Los Angeles, the city where dreams are made and shattered, and is ensnared in a lethal case in this latest thriller in #1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci’s Nero Award-winning series.

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In One Good Deed, bestselling and award-winning author David Baldacci introduced readers to Aloysius Archer, a World War II veteran who had just been released from prison for a crime he maintained he did not commit. He became embroiled in a murder mystery and helped solve the case. He so impressed the lead detective, Irving Shaw, that Shaw recommended Archer to his buddy, Willie Dash, who once worked with Eliot Ness. As A Gambling Man, the second book in the series, opened, Archer was on his way to Bay Town, California, to take advantage of Shaw’s generosity and convince Dash to give him a chance. Along the way, Archer found plenty of trouble, as well as Liberty Callahan, a Reno nightclub performer with dreams of making it big in Hollywood. Finally arriving in Bay Town, Archer became Dash’s apprentice and his relationship with Liberty grew closer. First, the good things. Let’s be honest. Writing an historical novel is not easy. Let alone a mystery that is focused on noir crime fiction, in which the protagonist is often tragically flawed, the themes and subject matter involve darkness, there is usually a mixture of violence and sex, and right and wrong are not clearly defined. It’s a sub-genre that Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett created and established classics with. So, let’s admit, jumping into their world and successfully delivering an interesting read is a very tough challenge, to say the least. But somehow, Baldacci has done his homework and research, delivering some good things in this Archer mystery. Missing client or not, Archer is determined to find both the murderer and Eleanor. With the help of Callahan and Willie Dash, who is now his partner, he launches an investigation that will take him from mob-ridden Las Vegas to the glamorous world of Hollywood to the darkest corners of Los Angeles, where dreams are made and shattered. There, beautiful faces are attached to cutthroat schemers, the cops can be more corrupt than the criminals . . . and the powerful people responsible for his client’s disappearance will kill without a moment’s hesitation if they catch Archer on their trail. Gresham, Tom (December 11, 2019). "David Baldacci once wrote stories in secret at VCU. Now he has millions of readers around the world". Virginia Commonwealth University.

Interestingly Archer is forced to ponder his mortality here and I’m trying to remember if he was as conscious of his fallibility in A Gambling Man. In many ways it’s refreshing to have someone consider the threat to their life without the usual bravado. It brings with it a sense of realism. And here – after the second near miss – Dash asks Archer if he’s willing to keep putting his life on the line and there’s a reminder that when someone’s heart is no longer in something they put themselves (and others) at risk. It’s the eve of 1953, and Aloysius Archer, private investigator and World War II veteran, is in Los Angeles to ring in the New Year with his old friend, aspiring actress Liberty Callahan. His destination was Universal Studios. He only knew one person there, but it was an important person, at least to him. Liberty Callahan had left Bay Town more than two years ago. That was where Archer lived and worked with Willie Dash’s “very private” detective agency. Callahan had gone to Hollywood to make her dream come true in the land of make-believe. As far as he knew, she was still working on making the town believe in her.

Dream Town

Being alive and living were also two distinct things, he had come to realize. The former being strictly biological; the latter was everything else." Aloysius Archer Archer is definitely out of his element, and if a murderer or the mob doesn’t kill him first, Hollywood certainly will… When Eleanor discovers Archer is a private eye, she hires him on the spot to help her. She describes getting mysterious calls during the night, an unknown blue car parked across the street from her house, and someone breaking into house and leaving a bloody knife in her kitchen sink. Eleanor is afraid, thinking her life is in danger, hoping that Archer can discover the cause of what’s happening to her.

He’s Willie. And Connie is Connie. And Bay Town hasn’t fallen into the Pacific yet, though it may be only a matter of time.” Los Angeles had two million souls sprawled over nearly five hundred square miles. Some people were crammed into slums, tract housing, and shadily built tenement death traps, like staples in a stapler, while the wealthy and famous had room to both flex and hide. All this in a city founded on the remnants of a village settled by the Tongva, an indigenous Indian tribe, who called it Yaanga, which translated to “poison oak place.” What I did, Archer, is between me, myself, and I.” She looked wistful, which she almost never did. “But I hear TV is really taking off,” she said. “Maybe I should think about trying that.”

Customer reviews

This case will take Archer on a wild ride through the rich and famous, people who have the money and means to think they can et away with anything. But they do not know how determined this PI can be. It is dangerous work but he has been to war and prison so if anyone can handle it he can.