Silent City, Alex Segura

I was hopeful about this one when the publicist contacted me via my blog to offer me a copy. Chris F. Holm and Adam Christopher blurbed it, and I’ve certainly enjoyed their books. Plus there was a reference to similarities between the main character and Matt Fraction’s Clint Barton, which… hmm, I don’t really see.

Anyway, the problem with this is for me, it felt like a pretty standard detective story in style, tone, plot, characters… There’s nothing surprising about an alcoholic PI, though Pete Fernandez is a bit more the worse for wear than most. One aspect I did like was some of the relationships in the story, like Pete’s with his ex-girlfriend. That felt a bit more nuanced than typical for these stories.

It’s a quick read, and if you have a particular affection for the genre or the city-scape of Miami, then it might be worth checking out, but if your tastes in crime fiction are more for the excellent outliers and stuff that breaks the mould, then I probably wouldn’t go for this one.