Black Lotus Kiss

This credible follow-up to Hex-Rated is another hardboiled joyride through the weird side of 1970s Los Angeles. Magician-turned-detective James Brimstone is attending a military veteran awards ceremony when a grenade explosion wreaks havoc and severely wounds Cactus, his friend and former commanding officer. Witnesses blame a nearby crowd of antiwar protesters, but James’s discovery at the crime scene of a Black Lotus—a fabulously rare flower regarded in Cimmerian mythology as having awesome occult properties—suggests more malign forces at work. In no time, he’s mixing it up with a street preacher, skate punks, and other unsavory habitués of the Venice Beach boardwalk, trying to find the connection between the lotus and a new berserker rage–inducing drug sweeping the pro-wrestling circuit. Ridler’s plot takes one outrageous twist after another, and most of the novel’s pleasures derive from seeing the unlikeliest characters caught up in its byzantine shenanigans. Filled with smart-aleck banter and period pop culture references, this is a solid sophomore effort. (Aug.)