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Title details for Ghost of a Flea by James Sallis - Available

Ghost of a Flea

#6 in series

by James Sallis
G. Valmont Thomas
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available

The mystery of Lew Griffin is revealed in this concluding novel of an honored series.

In his old house in uptown New Orleans, Griffin is alone. His relationship with Deborah is falling apart; his son, David, had disappeared again. And Lew is directionless: he hasn't written anything in years, he no longer teaches. Now he stands in a dark room, staring out the window. Behind him, on the bed, is a body. He thinks if he doesn't speak, doesn't think about what happened, somehow things will be all right.

In a story that is as much about identity as it is about crime, Sallis's enthralling series about a black man moving through time in a white man's world has held up the mirror to society and culture as it set Lew Griffin to the task of discovering who he is. This brilliant final volume will resonate in readers' minds long after the story is finished.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Lew Griffin

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 13, 2009

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781481552547
      • File size: 189035 KB
      • Duration: 06:33:49

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 12, 2001
      The enigmatic saga of the likable New Orleans private eye Lew Griffin draws to a satisfyingly convoluted closure in this sixth and final installment. Evoking a stark metaphysical landscape where time hovers on the verge of midnight and the sky is pregnant with rain, Sallis (Eye of the Cricket; Bluebottle; etc.) explores similar concerns over identity and the role of the detective as those found in Paul Auster's New York Trilogy. In what is sure to become an equally classic set of novels, he keeps it closer to the everyday with the very human exploits of Griffin and a detailed use of the streets and characters of the Delta City. But Sallis pushes the poetry of noir further than Auster and most other practitioners with such images as "another of society's makeshift facsimiles of dreams, rags and tatters of movies, media, popular literature, this new mythology, that my homeless soul had taken for its own and worn into the street." As Griffin faces his own mortality, his son is once again missing, and a cop friend is shot during a robbery; but these crime elements seem merely ornamental—the big action sequence actually centers on pigeon-killers. Readers who enjoy more average PI novels may find Sallis's highly allusive style a bit much, but fans of particularly sophisticated writing will love the experience of being drawn deeper and deeper into circles of narrative complexity. Agent, the Vicky Bijur Literary Agency. (Jan. 10)FYI:Sallis is also the author of
      Chester Himes: A Life (Forecasts, Jan. 8).

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The culmination of Sallis's six-part story of New Orleans private detective/novelist Lew Griffin explores areas of the human condition rarely examined in mysteries. Narrator G. Valmont Thomas affects a world-weary tone as he intones bits of poetry along with evocative descriptions of "The Crescent City." Novelist James Sallis creates a universe for his investigator in which loose strings are gathered but not always tied into a neat bow, and Thomas mirrors the whipsaw changes in tone, rhythm, time, point of view, and place, eventually producing an air of acquiescence and, at the moment of Griffin's passing, acceptance. R.O. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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