A review by rbreade
The Infinite Blacktop by Sara Gran

Sun-baked noir in the tradition of Raymond Chandler. The world-weariness of Gran's protagonist, Claire DeWitt, seems always on the verge of parody, but Gran keeps the tone from going over the edge by signaling that she understands and is in control, most amusingly by having this hard-bitten detective name her cases in the manner of Holmes and Watson: The Case of the Bird with Broken Wings, the Case of the Knife in the Heart. The Case of the Infinite Blacktop. Other pleasures include Gran's skillful weaving together of three seemingly unrelated story threads, from 1986, 1999, and 2011, though my favorite moment is when the text of the never-printed last issue of a comic DeWitt loved as a kid, the Cynthia Silverton Mystery Digest, about the "best teen detective in the world," shows up late in the novel, in full, in what turns out to be a painkiller-fueled hallucination/dream. An unexpected delight.