Double Solitaire

A Hollywood producer hires L.A. fixer Quinn Farrell, the winning protagonist of this excellent series launch from Nova (All the Dead Yale Men), because he’s worried about one of his movie stars, Terry Peregrine (“a hymn to falseness”), with good reason. Peregrine likes to pick up underage girls, some of whom shake him down, but others disappear. At the actor’s house, Farrell tries to persuade a girl no older than 16 demanding $20,000 from Peregrine to go back to the motel where she’s staying, but to no avail, and he leaves without resolving the conflict. When another girl linked to Peregrine later goes missing, finding what happened to her becomes Farrell’s mission. Meanwhile, Farrell gets romantically involved with a neighbor who works with terminally ill children, and in a comic interlude Russian gangsters target his cover business, managing vending machines. A highly talented stylist, Nova complements Farrell’s moral and existential angst with some trenchant observations on L.A.: “hope so perfectly mixed with the possibilities of disaster” in the form of fires, earthquakes, landslides, or loss of fame. Noir fans will hope to see a lot more of Farrell. Agent: Craig Kayser, Kayser Pierce Literary. (Sept.)