Domenic Stansberry’s new noir mystery takes it slow, unraveling in beautiful prose the confounding situation its protagonist, political ghostwriter SE Reynolds. Stansberry—who hasn’t published a novel in almost a decade—has won numerous prizes, including an Edgar Award (Mystery Writers of America) and a Hammett Prize for his past books.
The Lizard isn’t a typical thriller that keeps the action pulsing and the pages flying. Instead, Reynolds is caught in a net that ever-so-slowly tightens around him. When the book begins, he’s already on the run in a desolate sector of Southern California. It’s La Bahia, a town worn out and on its last legs. Just like the old Hotel La Bahia, destined for the wrecking ball. Just like Reynolds himself? Why anyone would go to this godforsaken place, willingly, is another mystery, yet someone may have followed him there. Or is his paranoia acting up?
Reynolds’s trouble started when a New York literary agent called to persuade him to help out an old friend—Max Seeghurs, another former investigative reporter—who’s supposed to be writing a book about a defunct New Mexico retreat called Sundial. Sundial was a popular destination for people on the make financially, politically, or in Hollywood. Sex and drugs. Alas, Sundial’s owner and his twenty-something son both died under dubious circumstances, the retreat closed down, and Seeghurs wants to pull the band-aid off. Expose the rot. But Seeghurs is having trouble pulling the book together; maybe Reynolds can be his manuscript doctor.
Reynolds isn’t keen on this potential assignment because Seeghurs is notoriously difficult to work with. And, because the last time they met up a couple of years back in Miscoulga, Nebraska, Reynolds had an affair with Seeghurs’s wife, now his ex-wife. But Reynolds’s latest candidate is not committing to hiring him, the money is attractive, and he finally agrees.
It takes some effort to track Seeghurs down out somewhere near the ocean on Coney Island. It’s not an easy thing finding him, the landlord hasn’t been paid and isn’t happy about it. But Reynolds persists and finds Seeghurs, all right. Dead. Trying to find out what happened takes him back to Miscoulga and eventually to the crumbling Hotel La Bahia—a sad place to make a last stand.
For a person who ends up so alone, he has some good relationships. Some of the spirited conversations with his ailing parents are among the funniest in the book. Not the typical mile-a-minute thriller, but one where you’ll want to savor the prose. And, you may find yourself pondering the possibilities, even after you turn the last page.
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