A review by gabriellaleblanc
Blue Avenue: First in a Noir Mystery Series Set in Jacksonville, Florida by Michael Wiley

4.0

I just finished reading Blue Avenue by Michael Wiley, a UNF English professor. I read this book for my Literature of American Pop Culture class. For this class, I had to read several detective novels including The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, and Black Betty by Walter Mosely. I have to say I didn't enjoy Chandler and Mosely's work nearly as much as I enjoyed Wiley's. This book was so suspenseful and unpredictable it kept me continuing turning pages when really I should have gone to sleep or started getting ready for work. I don't get that reaction from very many school-assigned reads. I'm very proud of Wiley, as a professor of my school, to have written such a brilliant story. BB is an extremely relatable character, and its impossible to ignore Susan's character in that I felt such  an enormous amount of empathy for. Really great read overall.