Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway (Claire DeWitt Mysteries, #2) in DC Public Library

Mar 16, 2019 Tony rated it liked it

Shelves: setting-nyc, novels, setting-us-west, crime

I really liked the first Claire DeWitt "mystery" -- it had a very original and personal voice, and went in directions I didn't expect. This next in the series finds the dysfunctional detective living in San Francisco some years later. An ex-boyfriend is found shot dead inside his locked home, and his sister suspects the wife of murder and so hired Claire to investigate. The ex and his wife are in various bands of middling fame, and with five of his guitars are missing, the plot meanders its way I really liked the first Claire DeWitt "mystery" -- it had a very original and personal voice, and went in directions I didn't expect. This next in the series finds the dysfunctional detective living in San Francisco some years later. An ex-boyfriend is found shot dead inside his locked home, and his sister suspects the wife of murder and so hired Claire to investigate. The ex and his wife are in various bands of middling fame, and with five of his guitars are missing, the plot meanders its way through the Bay Area music networks of (fictional) bands and clubs. Meanwhile, alternating chapters flash back to late 1980s New York, and the case of teenage Claire's missing friend -- continuing the unfinished narrative from the first book.

Rather than harmonize, the two plots tend to compete for attention, and so the book lacks a certain level of focus. I suspect that if I'd re-read the first book just before this, it might have worked a bit better, since that flashback plot is such a continuation, and I'd forgotten many of the elements introduced in the first book. There are some good set pieces throughout, such as a consultation with a weirdo expert in poker chips -- but these are few and far between. What's far more prevalent is Claire's slowly increasing cocaine snorting and pill popping. There's a very good narrative and emotional reason for her self-destructive slide, but it makes for someone grim reading. Definitely not the kind of thing that's likely to resonate with traditional mystery readers.

Indeed, those seeking conventional detective fare should probably avoid this. Claire doesn't work conventionally, and has vivid dreams/hallucinations in which she is pointed in certain directions. And by the end of the book, the plotline of her missing childhood friend remains unresolved, and the solution to her ex's murder is surprisingly banal. Actually -- it's worse than that because I don't think the timeline makes sense. Early in the book she gets the police version of the night, and at the end, there's a confession, and the two can't possibly coexist without time and space being bent.

I do still like the generally oddness and peculiarity of the tone, and will read the next in the series, but this one is a bit of a misfire. ...more

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Dec 07, 2013 Jim rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mysteries-and-crime-fiction

The second Claire DeWitt book is different from the first, but still excellent. While City of the Dead pitted Gran's tortured protagonist against the lingering desperation of post-Katrina New Orleans, DeWitt is her own worst enemy in the sequel. Capturing the same chaotic energy as the first, Bohemian Highway focuses on DeWitt's self-destruction roaming aimlessly around the Bay Area during the investigation of a dead ex, while also exploring the roots of her demons in her adolescence set in late ...more

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Jul 06, 2013 Bobbie rated it really liked it

Books about SF are not as good as books about NOLA. That aside, this book ruled and I loved it - another engaging mystery from an author who really knows how to write authentically "cool" characters.

Though, realistically as Claire does an insane amount of drugs in this book, she should have OD'd by like the fourth chapter. I am ready for the next book. I miss Andray. ...more

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Mar 11, 2021 Alison rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, own_it

I liked this but there’s a drug addiction subplot I found a little distracting. But otherwise interesting characters and and an intertwined story that I think added a lot to the book.

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May 01, 2023 Ruth rated it really liked it

Shelves: ebooks

Claire DeWitt, forever and ever. Wonderful female antihero. A kind of riposte to the Chandler oeuvre of hard-boiled detective fiction, asking what if Phillip Marlowe had been a woman born in NYC in the 1980s?

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