While I Disappear: A John Ray Horn Novel

Rating:
Summary: It's a Stretch to Compare Wright to James Ellroy...
Review: Maybe I would be more of a fan if Wright wrote more like Ellroy. This is his second John Ray Horn novel, following the adventures of a former movie cowboy who now works as a debt collector for his Indian sidekick from the movies, and occasionally finds himself investigating a variety of crimes. There are some dark corners in these novels, but, unfortunately, not enough of them. I really want to like Horn, but Wright is still something of a clunky writer--Horn is not a very consistent character. He's always jumping to the wrong conclusions and alienating fomer friends, who are all too willing to forgive him his mistakes. Wright tries to palm this off as the product of Horn's upbringing by a morally rigid preacher-father, but it reads more like inconsistent characterization. Horn is also just a bit too much of a goody-goody, in keeping with his fomer movie cowboy role, to deal with the sorts of dark crimes he keeps coming up against (here, it's a long-forgotten rape/murder at a wild party back in the silent movie days which turns out to have repercussions in the present day, post WWII Los Angeles). If these books were more like _Chinatown_ in their handling of the dark side of America's fascination with California, they might be more compelling. It wasn't a bad book by any means, but I'm still waiting for Wright to really hit one out of the park.