Claire and her two best friends, Tracy and Kelly, fell under the spell of the book Detection by legendary French detective Jacques Silette. The three solved many cases together—until the day Tracy vanished without a trace. Later, in her twenties, Claire is in Los Angeles trying to get her PI license by taking on a cold case that has stumped the LAPD. Then she's almost killed by a homicidal driver. As these three narratives converge, some mysteries are solved and others continue to haunt.
One of the most exciting things about Sara Gran’s The Infinite Blacktop...is the way it uses all of these often restrictive neo-conventions to its advantage in order to create a completely original hybrid of mystery, thriller, contemporary noir, dark comedy and postmodern meditation about what it means to be a detective ... Gran makes...fragmentation, in which no single story line ever becomes central, feel organic to her main character, who also seems constructed out of jagged shards ... Gran has an engagingly sardonic voice and a sure grip of storytelling basics, even those she is manifestly interested in ignoring or transcending ... The Infinite Blacktop is droll, savage and healthily unsettling, even at moments when it verges on becoming an essay about its own construction.
...trust me, you are in for a singular mystery experience ... her cases seem like they’re taking place on one of those old Anytown, U.S.A., Twilight Zone sets. The Infinite Blacktop is the most intricately plotted of the series ... The peculiar charisma of Gran’s mysteries derives not only from her wayward plots but also from eccentric details.
Claire DeWitt is a private detective not always easy to like ... In the end, you want her on your side ... By adding a comic-book teen detective and an elegant French investigator to the Claire DeWitt mystery mix, Gran turns The Infinite Blacktop into a thriller that is no ordinary, by-the-book crime procedural.
