Déjà Noir: A Detroit Mystery

by Robert E. Bailey

From the award-winning author of the Art Hardin series— Private Heat, Dying Embers , and Dead Bang —comes a compelling new mystery, Déjà Noir . Ray Kerze hasn't been having the best time of it. His closest friends are the guys in line with him at the liquor store before breakfast. He lives in his office in the decaying heart of Detroit, and that's only because the building is so far gone, no one shows up to collect rent. An ex-cop turned private investigator, he's not so much investigating as drowning himself in whiskey and helping out other struggling denizens of downtown in his sober moments. His life becomes a bit more interesting—and, some might say, worth living—when a young woman shows up at his office and asks him to kill her. . . . She's a paying customer with nearly twelve dollars in cash, so first “breakfast,” and then he can figure out why the young woman wants him to do her in. It's a novel of murder, con jobs, and just a little bit of romance, full of twists and surprises that will have you wondering about a lot more than whodunit?

229 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 31, 2019

About the author

Robert Bailey spent five years as a corporate security director in the city of Detroit and twenty years as a licensed private investigator. His first novel, PRIVATE HEAT, an action-packed private-eye thriller, won the Josiah W. Bancroft Award at the Florida First Coast Writer's Festival in 1998 and was nominated for the 2003 Shamus Award, given by the Private Eye Writers of America.

A Vietnam-era draftee, he retired from the military as a reservist and a field-grade officer. An award-winning combat pistol shot, he returned to his first love, writing, when he was injured on the job and no longer able to work the street.

Reviews

[Julia Hebner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard-nosed Private Eye with a Big Heart -- not my usual genre. I was up until 1 a.m. reading and finished the book in a second sitting the next morning. Interesting cast of characters with a tangled and fascinating plot line that all comes together in the end. It kept me guessing until the next-to-the-last chapter. Lots of fireworks and surprises but was the ending a little trite? Probably, but this IS a Hard-nosed Private Eye with a Big Heart. I should have seen it coming from the first page.