Double Solitaire — Craig Nova

A tantalizing LA novel for fans of Michael Connelly and James Ellroy.

"More than refurbished L.A. Noir. The scenes where Farrell visits with the patients [at UCLA Children's Hospital], canny judges of character and tuning forks for emotional truth, carry devastating weight, and Nova's smooth prose brings the roiling undercurrents to the surface. He's fashioned a series character well worth revisiting. "  -- The New York Times

Quinn Farrell is a modern-day fixer in Los Angeles -- he cleans up other people's messes. Rich people's messes. For a lot of money. He's so good that he's become indispensable to Hollywood moguls and he's managed to construct a working moral framework so that he can live with himself. That is until a new neighbor moves next door, Rose Marie, who works with terminally ill teens. Against all his survival instincts, Farrell falls in love with Rose Marie and then her uncanny patients, who shine a spotlight into his soul. When a client steps over the line and Farrell is hired to clean up after a reprehensible crime, his carefully constructed ethical house of cards comes crashing down. 

Double Solitaire is the first in a series of LA-based thrillers featuring Quinn Farrell,. As with all Nova's deeply intuitive fiction, Farrell is an unforgettable living force in a setting that needs no fiction to be any weirder than it is: contemporary Hollywood.