New Yorked

Set in New York City, Hart’s edgy debut introduces a down-and-out sometime PI, Ashley McKenna, who wakes up one afternoon in his Lower East Side apartment from a drunken blackout to find a cry for help from his girlfriend, Chell, on his smartphone. He soon learns he’s too late: Chell’s body, showing signs of sexual assault, has been found in a Queens junkyard. Driven by a mix of anger, guilt, and depression, Ash sets out to find Chell’s killer. He wanders from bar to bar in a world that seems to function on a mixture of alcohol and nicotine, with occasional infusions of cocaine. Following bewildering clues through the city’s boroughs, omitting only the Bronx, he encounters bizarre characters with names such as Bombay, Ivy Archer, Snow White, and the King of Hipsters. The book’s relentless pacing and strong sense of place compensate for the incoherent plot line, which prevents it from being truly effective. [em]Agent: Bree Ogden, D4EO Literary Agency. (June) [/em]