Created by Lou Berney
“Her eyes were a strange metallic green, like the sky in Oklahoma when suddenly the wind died and you knew a tornado was near.”
So far, Lou Berney’s Vegas P.I. WYATT has — unfortunately — made only one appearance, in The Long and Faraway Gone (2015). But it’s a good one, winning an Edgar, a Macavity and a Barry for Best Paperback Original, as well as being nominated for the 2015 LA Times Book Prize.
Wyatt seems relatively content with his life in Vegas, running background checks on “high level hires” for the casinos and other companies. He’s got a four year old Honda that runs, and a small three-bedroom house he’s almost paid off. Okay, maybe some folks take him for a smart ass, but he feels at home in Vegas. He even has a great girlfriend named Laurie. He’s good.
He was originally from Oklahoma City, but he hasn’t been back in years, never having quite come to terms with the armed robbery twenty-five years ago of a movie house that left six of his friends dead. I mean seriously not coming to terms, as in changing your name and moving away not coming to terms.
But somehow he ends up back there on a case — only to be reminded going back home isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and that the past is never really “long gone and faraway.” Furthermore, it can still seriously fuck up the present — and possibly cancel the future.
It’s a deft tale of hurt, obsession and loss, compassionate and sensitively told, peopled with deep rich characters, and leavened by a sly-but-knowing humour and a slew of imaginaitive “hey, listen-to-this” similes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lou Berney’s other novels include Whiplash River (2012), and the also-recommended Gutshot Straight (2010). His short stories have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker and The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and he’s also written feature screenplays and created TV pilots for, among others, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Focus Features, ABC, and Fox.
UNDER OATH
- “The Long and Faraway Gone is that rare literary gem — a dark, quintessentially cool noir novel that is both deeply poignant, and very funny . . . as hip, hilarious, and entertaining as it is wrenching, beautiful, and ultimately redemptive.”
— Huffington Post
NOVELS
- The Long and Faraway Gone (2015) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
