Where the Bones Lie by Nick Kolakowski – Review

Dash McClane has hit rock bottom. His glory days as a Hollywood fixer are over. His new gig as a stand-up comic is going nowhere and a beautiful young woman is about to get him into a whole lot of trouble. Ken Ironwood is a smuggler who rubbed shoulders with LA celebrities in his pomp. But when Ironwood is found dead, his remains stuffed inside a barrel in a dry lake bed, it threatens to unleash some dangerous secrets. Working under the ropey assumption that McClane is a private detective, Ironwood’s daughter Madeline hires Dash to find some answers.

Nick Kolakowski is a noir voice for the 21st century. He understands Southern California, from it’s warped celebrity-obsessed culture to the sardonic fatalism of its people who once nurtured dreams of fame and fortune but are now just looking to make a buck, and is able to render it compellingly in his fiction. Where the Bones Lie is a darkly comic new take on the private detective/fixer novel in the vein of Jordan Harper’s modern classic Everybody Knows. I was touched by how the relationship deepened between McClane and Madeline and found myself bracing for the inevitable showdown as they drew nearer to Ironwood’s killer.