The Esmeralda Goodbye

by Corey Lynn Fayman

1955. In the sleepy seaside town of La Jolla, CA, rookie cop Jake Stirling saves the life of infamous crime writer Raymond Chandler, earning the respect of his hard-nosed captain, Wade Lennox, who served with Jake’s father, a police detective whose suicide two years earlier shocked the town and shattered Jake's family.Jake gets called to the Hotel Del Charro, a luxury hideaway for the rich and famous. Budding starlet Zsa Zsa Gabor’s diamond necklace has been stolen. She and other hotel guests—FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, political wheeler-dealer Artie Corcoran, and mob boss Meyer Lansky press their own cryptic agendas, while Raymond Chandler provokes outrage with drunken allegations of police corruption. When a local hoodlum is murdered Captain Lennox takes Jake into his confidence, demanding loyalty.More killings follow as Jake finds himself caught up in a conspiracy that could change the course of American history. Can he clear his father's name and save those he loves from the cold-blooded brutality of desperate and powerful men?

308 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2024

About the author

“A powerful new voice on the crime-fiction scene” (ForeWord Reviews), Corey Lynn Fayman has made a career of avoiding the sunlight in his hometown of San Diego, California, where he’s done hard time as a keyboard player for local bands, a sound designer for the world-famous Old Globe Theatre, and an interactive designer for organizations both corporate and sundry. Armed with a B.A. in Creative Writing from UCLA and an M.A. in Educational Technology from SDSU, he’s also taught technology and design courses at various colleges and universities in Southern California.

Fayman's adventures working for the infamous Internet startup MP3.com led him to conceive the character of Rolly Waters, the guitar-playing detective first featured in the San Diego Book Awards nominated mystery, Black’s Beach Shuffle. Encouraged by this early success, he set about writing a second Rolly Waters Mystery, Border Field Blues, winner of the Genre Award at the 2013 Hollywood Book Festival. Desert City Diva, the third novel in the series, was a bronze award winner in the 2015 Indiefab Book of the Year Awards. The latest in the series, Ballast Point Breakdown, was awarded the best-in-show Geisel Award at the 2021 San Diego Book Awards.

Reviews

[Conny · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a fun book to read because I’m old enough to remember all the characters, and I live in San Diego, where the story took place. it’s obvious that the author did a great deal of research about the lives of these very famous people. Not a compelling story but fun nevertheless.

[Paul Emilio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theme. You remember that concept, don’t you? From back in high school? Perhaps you recall the titles that accompanied it, like The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, Romeo and Juliet, or, gasp! Hamlet? Theme was the thing your English Teachers tried to hammer into your brain while you were too busy trying to figure out the goddamned plot. Your Social Studies Teachers wouldn’t go near it, not with all the names, dates, and events you had to memorize to pass that class.

But theme is a thing. And it could very well be a good thing, especially in the right hands. And it is crafted, developed, and executed expertly in the novel, The Esmerelda Goodbye, by Corey Lynn Fayman.

Firstly, a theme is a message, a message that the author, musician, sculptor, etc., tries to impart through their piece of art. Songs, short stories, paintings–if elements within them have something in common, five will get you ten that it’s a theme that’s trying to emerge. They’re evident in the sentences, chords, and brush strokes of each artifact.

And in TEG? The theme is that corruption is inescapable. No one is safe from it, the innocent are damned by it, veterans are hardened by it. Nobody escapes its sinister clutches, its far-reaching effects, its labyrinthine web. Nobody.

The tale is set in 1955 in La Jolla, in the suburbs of San Diego, California. A pageant of historical figures parades throughout the novel, including Desi and Lucy Arnaz, Zsa Zsa Gabor, J. Edgar Hoover, Meyer Lansky, and especially Raymond Chandler, who acts as a mentor for the green protagonist. Said hero, Jake Stirling, a rookie policeman who usually patrols during the graveyard shift, embodies the symbol of innocence in this dark noir tale. A symbol that is oh-so-ripe for corrupting. As mentioned before, even he cannot escape corruption, despite his valiant efforts.

What first seem like isolated occurrences in Officer Stirling's life gradually develop into crucial components of a complicated mystery, linking a theft to a string of apparently unrelated murders. His childhood friend, Todd DuBarry, is somehow involved in all of this, stays out of sight for most of the novel, and becomes a target of the law enforcement higher-ups before he too becomes a victim.

It’s a setup that’s quite promising. Young Jake Stirling, eager and idealistic rookie policeman, loyal son and older brother, in love and soon engaged to be married, befriends and falls under the wing of Raymond Chandler, one of the greatest crime novelists of our time. Chandler, a crusty old curmudgeon at this point, warms up to the young officer and imparts warnings about rampant corruption, especially predicting that a “man who tells tales” is the worst offender of the bunch and should be avoided at all costs.

And it’s Jake’s boss, said “man who tells tales,” Police Captain Wade Lennox, who emerges as the tarnished symbol of the corruption that public officials can embody. He’s always the first to arrive at crime scenes that Jake initially calls in, as if he is clairvoyant. He secretly assigns the overarching case to Jake, pressuring him not to tell anyone else at the department about it. The fact that Captain Lennox is the one who shoots Jake in the back, leaving him paralyzed, underscores this theme of corruption and its inescapability completely. That point in the novel still gives me chills.

Needless to say, I highly recommend this book. It’s not often that a genre novel can express theme in such a masterful manner as in The Esmerelda Goodbye.

Paul Emilio
https://www.ectoverse.net/

[pennell paugh]

The book beautifully imitates a Raymond Chandler style noir mystery.

A naïve, La Jolla, CA rookie cop, Jake Stirling, works in a town that’s full of celebrities who rub shoulders with the mob, oilmen, and the wealthy. J. Edgar Hoover has a role to play, acting very much like a crime boss wanna-be and calling everyone he doesn’t like a communist.

Jake saves the life of infamous crime writer Raymond Chandler, who attempts suicide while grieving his wife’s death. Chandler’s gun, while in the safe keeping of the La Jolla police, causes the murders in two local murders. Chandler tells Jake that whoever used Chandler’s gun will turn up telling a story that wraps the story up in a nice neat package. Jake figures out who the storyteller is, but can he tell the world who did the murders?

An exciting page-turner, this book is full of mystery, romance, and scandals. It’s a San Diego gem.

[John Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Corey Lynn Fayman has given us a double treat with The Esmeralda Goodbye. It’s not only a compelling mystery, but it’s also a young cop’s coming of age tale. “Trust no one.” That is the new game Officer Jake Stirling learns to play.

Fayman plausibly weaves quite a number of 1950’s historical figures into the plot including author Raymond Chandler, actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The author leaves a few questions unanswered. I assume we readers will get the answers in future books in the series.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Esmeralda Goodbye and am looking forward to its sequels.

[RA · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raymond Chandler's suicide attempt, a young La Jolla policeman, the tragedy of his policeman father, his younger brother & his two friends, an important HS friend of his, Zsa Zsa Gabor, J. Edgar Hoover, Meyer Lansky, Nicky Hilton, the son of Conrad Hilton, Clint Murchison, Carlos Marcello, a missing necklace & train case, murders, beatings, arrests, FBI, thugs, corruption - all set in the mid/late 50s.

Entertaining, but hints at a sequel.

[Tmarsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read for mystery aficionados.

Very good mystery. Lots of twist and turns with a cast of colorful character’s. I would recommend this book to all those who enjoy a good mystery novel.

[Linda Castro · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of his best yet! impeccably researched, wonderful social (and sometimes political) commentary woven in throughout - we'll want the series to continue much like Fayman's Rolly Waters books do!

[Nona Pepkowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a second book I have read of Mr Farman and was not disappointed! Well written and worth reading!

[Gary W Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping Read

Loved this latest book from Corey Fayman. The plot has great twists and turns and I enjoyed the nods to the wonderful town of La Jolla. I will wait impatiently for the next book!

[Linda Castro]

a 'period' piece with noir writ large! impeccably researched with some social and even some political commentary woven in throughout a compelling mystery! Hope Fayman will continue this series much like his Rolly Waters books!