About Mystery Girl
Publisher: New Harvest (July 16, 2013)
Pages: 320
Vertigo meets Tarantino in this thriller by Edgar finalist David Gordon, whom Karen Thompson Walker, author of The Age of Miracles, has hailed as “one of the smartest, most stylish writers I’ve ever come across, a gifted storyteller whose work perfectly combines an incredibly sharp wit with moments of real transcendent beauty.”
Sam Kornberg is a failed novelist living in L.A. with a collapsing marriage. Desperate for work, he becomes the assistant to a portly, housebound detective named Solar Lonsky. His assignment to track a mysterious woman is the trigger for a tense, smart, and often screamingly funny story involving sexy doppelgangers, insane asylums, south-of-the-border shootouts, mistaken identities, video-store-geekery, and the death of the novel. It’s as if Tarantino had remade Vertigo after bingeing on Nero Wolfe novels.
Mystery Girl is both an entertaining thriller and a cunning inquiry into art, style, and deception.
“I’m a Lebowski, you’re a Lebowski, and fans of the famous Coen Brothers film may find many of their favorite aspects mirrored in this dark comedy…An unpredictable farce.”—Kirkus
“[Raymond] Chandler’s shadow hangs over [Mystery Girl], as do the literary shades of Proust, Beckett, and Pynchon, and the equally strong cinematic influences of the Hitchcock of Vertigo and the Welles of Touch of Evil. The book is filled with literary and cinematic references… Gordon’s appealing wit and obvious intellect propel this gripping tale to a finely wrought and mostly unexpected conclusion.”—Booklist
“Mystery Girl is funnier, sadder, and smarter than seems mathematically possible: Dashiell Hammett divided by Don DeLillo, to the power of Dostoevsky – yet still pure David Gordon.” —Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances
“Mystery Girl is hilarious, sad, and a little bit horny. David Gordon somehow synthesizes every part of the human condition – from the sublime to the humiliating – into one whip-smart voice. Like Muriel Spark and John Fante, he’s the genius who you never want to shut up.” —Jay Caspian Kang, author of The Dead Do Not Improve
“David Gordon has written a passionate love story disguised as a mystery, a brainy tragicomedy, a bildungsroman wherein ‘the gumshoe learns the shocking secret of himself.’ His prose is by turns salacious, uproarious, and happily unhinged. A total delight.” —Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!
About David Gordon
David Gordon was born in New York City. He attended Sarah Lawrence College and holds an MA in English and Comparative Literature and an MFA in Writing, both from Columbia University, and has worked in film, fashion, publishing, and pornography. His first novel, The Serialist, won the VCU/Cabell First Novel Award and was a finalist for an Edgar Award. His work has also appeared in The Paris Review, Purple, and Fence among other publications.
Connect with David at his website.
David Gordon’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Tuesday, August 6th: Unabridged Chick
Wednesday, August 7th: Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile
Thursday, August 8th: 5 Minutes for Books
Monday, August 12th: Must. Read. Faster
Thursday August 15th: From the TBR Pile
Saturday, August 17th: Luxury Reading
Tuesday, August 20th: The Best Books Ever
Wednesday, August 21st: The Picky Girl
Wednesday, August 21st: Mockingbird Hill Cottage
Thursday, August 22nd: No More Grumpy Bookseller
Monday, August 26th: Conceptual Reception
Tuesday, August 27th: Between the Covers
Wednesday, August 28th: Wordsmithonia
Thursday, August 29th: Man of La Book
Tuesday, September 3rd: Book Dilettante
Thursday, September 5th: Tiffany’s Bookshelf