About:
Mystery Girl by David Gordon is a noir novel set in California. Mr Gordon’s first novel, The Serialist, won the VCU/Cabell First Novel Award and was a finalist for an Edgar Award.
The publisher is giving away one copy of this book –to enter fill out the Rafflecoptter form at the end of the post.
- 320 pages
- Publisher: New Harvest; First Edition edition
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0544028589
My rating for Mystery Girl — 4
Buy this book in paper or electronic format*
Thoughts:
Mystery Girl by David Gordon (website) is definitely a men’s novel full of self doubt, awkwardness, porn, manly movie talk and Jackie Chan. The book is both funny and sad, easy to read but certainly not fluff. The novel is much like real life, when things which are insignificant to others seem to be insurmountable objects in your life, and subjects which are important to you are meaningless to most.
The style of the book took me a little time to get used to, it’s frank but with a lot of similes to make sure you know you’re reading a noir novel. However, I did enjoy the humor, the characters as well as the story. The author pays homage to the movie industry; the narrator is a novelist so it was nice to read how movies influence writers and not necessarily the other way around. The characters were interesting, self-deprecating and honest. I found the idea of a failed writer who thinks he’s right (his stories have no plot) while everyone else is wrong to be funny and amusing.
There is no doubt that Mr. Gordon is a very talented writer, while the book has a few ups and downs, overall I really liked the writing and the story.
Synopsis:
Sam Kornberg lives in L.A., his marriage is falling apart and it looks like he’ll never be the novelist he dreamed of being. Looking for any job he might be qualify for , Sam gets a job as an assistant (he specializes in being an “assistant”) detective to Solar Lonsky.
Sam’s first assignment is to track a mysterious woman who triggers the adventure his about to take involving shootouts, mistaken identities, insane asylums and lots of movie talk in a video store.
Buy this book in paper or electronic format*
Giveaway
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Giveaway ends: September 05, 2013
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US/Canada Shipping Addresses Only
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No PO Boxes
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Winners will have 24 hours to write back with their address, otherwise an alternate winner will be picked
Email as name
TLC Book Tour for Mystery Girl by David Gordon:
- Tuesday, August 6th: Unabridged Chick
- Wednesday, August 7th: Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile
- Thursday, August 8th: 5 Minutes for Books
- Monday, August 12th: Must. Read. Faster
- Thursday August 15th: From the TBR Pile
- Saturday, August 17th: Luxury Reading
- Tuesday, August 20th: The Best Books Ever
- Wednesday, August 21st: The Picky Girl
- Wednesday, August 21st: Mockingbird Hill Cottage
- Thursday, August 22nd: No More Grumpy Bookseller
- Monday, August 26th: Conceptual Reception
- Tuesday, August 27th: Between the Covers
- Wednesday, August 28th: Wordsmithonia
- Thursday, August 29th: Man of La Book
- Tuesday, September 3rd: Book Dilettante
- Thursday, September 5th: Tiffany’s Bookshelf
Zohar — Man of la Book
Disclaimer: I got this book for free from TLC Book Tours.
*Amazon links point to an affiliate account
2 Comments
I’m afraid you liked this one a lot more than I did. When I wrote my review, I didn’t even have much to say about it. Great review.
I’m glad you enjoyed this one overall. Thanks for being on the tour!