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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN num: 9780843953510
ISBN number: 0843953519
Label: Hard Crime Case
Manufacturer: Hard Crime Case
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 221
Printing Date: October 31, 2004
Publishing house: Hard Crime Case
Sale Popularity Level: 43410
Studio: Hard Crime Case
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
A Shamus Award-nominee Author
John Blake and Miranda Sugarman dated in high school, but after graduation they went their separate ways: he stayed in New York City and became a private investigator while she moved to the midwest and settled down to a safe, respectable life as an eye doctor. Or so he thought -- until the day, ten years later, when he opened the Daily News and saw Miranda's photo staring out at him under the headline 'STRIPPER MURDERED.' John wants to find out how Miranda ended up stripping for a living. What happened to Miranda's college roommate, Jocelyn, who also dropped out when Miranda did? And just how was Miranda involved with small-time drug dealer Murco Khachadurian? The closer John gets to the answers, the more dangerous and violent the case becomes, until a bloody assault on someone close to him leads John to a shocking discovery and a shattering face-off with the person responsible.
Richard Aleas is the pseudonym of a Shamus Award-nominated mystery writer who lives in New York City.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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Worthy effort, but I felt the author could have done more to enliven the main character. I felt distanced from him, and didn't have a sense of the strong emotions that must have driven his actions.
Rated by buyers 
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John Blake, a preppy private eye sees what appears to be a picture of his high school love in the Daily News under the headline Stripper Murdered. It's been ten years since they were together and she went off to college. He can't believe what seem to be the surface facts and decides to investigate. He follows a path of lesbian love, big buck robbery and brutal murders up to a surprising finish. Good, quick page turner.
Rated by buyers -
After rejecting the idea of reading yet another Robert B. Parker, and waiting for the subsequent Michael Connelly paperback release, I was drawn to Little Girl Lost and the following Songs of Innocence by listening to Aleas/Adai's interview by Terry Gross.
The opening pages drew me in immediately, keeping my attention for the full ride. When I finished, I turned back to page 1 and started again, reviewing the initial chapters with knowledge of the conclusion. Even on the second reading, it worked. If you like the genre, the two books are highly recommended. Aleas really finds his stride in Innocence, but in addition to being an essential introduction to that second book, Little Girl Lost is worthwhile on its own. But if you like this one, please, please read on.
warning: minor spoiler follows:
"Don't judge a book by its cover" is an old adage to which I don't fully subscribe. It's easy enough to avoid reading the back cover, or the promotional material on the very first few sheets, but the front cover is hard to ignore. In the case of Little Girl Lost, it's just too suggestive, influencing the reader's engagement in the unfolding mystery. The cover art alone is enough to keep this edition from a 5-star review.
Rated by buyers 
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Fans of hardboiled crime novels, in the vein of Chandler and Hammett, take heart. Dorchester Publishing has issued a new line of paperbacks under the banner of Hard Case Crime featuring the best of the new generation of hard-boiled writers as well as authors from the past whose work has been long out of print
More that just his very first venture into the hard-boiled genre, "Little Girl Lost" (2004) is Richard Aleas' very first novel. He introduces us to John Blake, a new breed of private eye who can hold his on when walking those mean streets of Chandler.
When Blake last saw his high school sweetheart, Miranda Sugarman she was on her way to school in the southwest to become an eye doctor. Ten years later he learns that she has been found murdered on the roof of the strip club where she had been working. Determined to find the truth he ignores the advice of his partner Lou and the threats of the thugs he encounters. Aided by a dancer Rebecca and his reluctant partner, he tries to follow Miranda's twisted path from academia to erotica.
I really enjoyed this book and feel that, in John Blake, he has truly captures the spirit of the hard boiled detective. I have no problem recommendeing this work to any fan of mystery or detective fiction. I am looking forward to the sequel, "Songs of Innocence"(2007 )
Rated by buyers -
Author Charles Ardai (who wrote this book under his anagramatic pen name Richard Aleas) described Little Girl Lost's protagonist John Blake to Terry Gross as well-meaning but not very good at his job. Which is not say that Blake is incompetent, but rather that whatever he does, he only makes things worse. Thus the kernel of truth at the center of the Hard Case Crime books: things can always get worse.
I enjoyed this book for that very reason. Not that I revel in stuff going bad and characters messing up themselves and others with abandon (I couldn't read Walter Moseley's Killing Johnny Fry, not because it's porn, which it is, but because the main character was so singularly bent on self-destruction). It's just that sometimes in life, s*** happens. And so it is with Blake.
Blake never had much ambition for himself, but as his career trajectory degraded from literature professor to junior private detective in a two-man outfit with a ground-floor Chelsea office, he found solace in knowing that his high-school girfield, Miranda, had gotten out of the city, gone to college and probably wound up with a nice career and 2.5 children. Imagine the abject shock to his universe when he opens the paper and sees her picture beside an article explaining that a stripper was murdered execution style on the roof of the club where she worked.
And so Blake chases down the rabbit hole, unearthing progressively more painful truths about the city, Miranda and himself.
Sounds like a joy to read doesn't it?
Well, it is. Part of what saves it is that it's probably only about 60,000 words long, and moves at a furious pace. Not a lot of time to dwell on death there. The other thing that saves it is that it's all so authentic. The crap that befalls Blake and Miranda is not there to screw them up as fodder for the plot (that's not the only reason). It's a harrowing lesson in expectations and how we adjust or ignore them to get by.
Highly recommended: GOOD ENOUGH TO BUY
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