The Silent Canary

Inspired by a late-night double feature of Humphrey Bogart films, Julia Zax takes a job as an assistant for a Los Angeles private investigator working out of a garage in an abandoned Hollywood studio. Her friends are suspicious, but Julia needs the cash -- and at least it will give her some good stories for her novel. When the detective who hires her, Don French, turns out to be much more mysterious than the run-of-the-mill adultery cases they take on through Craigslist,… (more)

Inspired by a late-night double feature of Humphrey Bogart films, Julia Zax takes a job as an assistant for a Los Angeles private investigator working out of a garage in an abandoned Hollywood studio. Her friends are suspicious, but Julia needs the cash -- and at least it will give her some good stories for her novel. When the detective who hires her, Don French, turns out to be much more mysterious than the run-of-the-mill adultery cases they take on through Craigslist, Julia becomes convinced he is at the heart of a deeper conspiracy involving a missing teenage girl and the city's popular and charismatic new district attorney. Guided by the detectives from her favorite Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett novels, Julia embarks on an investigation of her own. Both a loving homage to and a revisionist skewering of classic detective fiction, The Silent Canary is a brilliant meditation on the ways unsolved mysteries can take over our lives.