Solitaire Book Club: Secret Identity (+ recap)

 Previously on Solitaire Book Club:

One of the great things about borrowing books from the library is the freedom to not read something you have borrowed. There's no specific investment in a particular volume, so a reader is free to follow Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50 (Amended) totally guilt-free. And I have done, to wit:

Overdue by Amanda Oliver: I am a sucker for deep-dive non-fiction and have a special affinity for libraries, but this memoir-cum-history just couldn't grab me.

These Truths by Jill Lepore: I was totally engaged by her chronicle of Wonder Woman, but this overarching history of the U.S. was a little too stilted.

Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch: I love the concepts but I guess I am just not post-modern enough for the prose.

The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt: Ditto. Plus, I am not a big fan of writers who eschew quotation marks in any case.

Sunshine by Robin McKinley: If I am still reading exposition at page 50, I am going to stop reading (unless the author is Nicholson Baker).

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao: I think I have read one fantasy novel in the past few years that seemed to have an original voice. Unfortunately, this one was did not join that club.

Now, to the present:

Secret Identity by Alex Segura. So, I have to admit a strong bias toward this book from the get-go, because (a) its context is the world of comic book publishing and (b) it is set in the bleak and desperate New York City of 1975, the time and place of my coming of age, as it were. Segura accurately captures the essence of both the world I have read so much about and the world that I inhabited as a young man, and does so in a classic style that is not so much a  murder mystery as a noir adventure. Even if you have never read a comic book or set foot in the five boroughs, it is well worth the read for the compelling characters and complex plot.