A man named Doll

After only a few pages of this extraordinary thriller, the reader senses a strong, original talent at work. The frame story is conventional: in a gone-to-seed Los Angeles, a PI, ex-cop, and ex-MP wonders if his choice of this sordid line of work comes from a "need to be punished." His name, Happy Doll, seems too cute by half, but then the story takes hold, all spare, steely sentences with an unadorned forward momentum. An old man, a former fellow cop who once took a bullet for Happy, shows up asking about Happy's blood type. He needs a new lung. The plot unveils itself: it's about black-market transplants, which are pricey: $200,000 per lung, $750,000 for a heart. Meanwhile, Happy has his hands full at his night job, protecting the women at a Thai spa whose customers demand special services. Moving from a stunningly written scene at the spa to a finale in which Happy is kidnapped by organ harvesters, Ames delivers an old-school L.A. crime novel that evokes Chandler with maybe an aftertaste of Bukowski. Readers expecting action won't be let down, and the sparkling yet unpretentious language gives the whole an extra kick. Recommend to noir fans, action fans, anyone who likes a good read.

At the outset of this exceptional series launch from Ames (You Were Never Really There), L.A. PI Hank "Happy" Doll (Happy is his real name; his parents "didn't think it was a joke") meets an old friend--Lou Shelton, an ex-cop who once saved Doll's life--who needs a huge favor: a kidney. He wants to buy one of Doll's. That evening, Doll, at his second job handling security for a massage parlor, shoots and kills a meth-head freak who goes after one of the masseuses, then attacks Doll with a knife. Later, Shelton appears at Doll's door, shot and near-dead, and hands Doll a diamond ("for my daughter"). The people who shot Shelton are now after Doll, who becomes enmeshed in an organ-harvesting scheme, in which Doll and his sometime girlfriend, Monica Santos, are meant to be victims. While the macabre seriousness of the crimes and the narrator's good-nature and sardonic humor might seem to be at odds, Ames makes it work through assured plotting, superb local color, and excellent prose. Readers will happily root for Doll, a good detective and a decent human, in this often funny and grisly outing. Agent: Agent: Eric Simonoff, William Morris Endeavor. (Apr.)