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Catching Water In A Net is the J. L. Abramo debut that announced he was going to be one of the most interesting noir voices of the early 2000s. Jake Diamond is a San Francisco PI in a recognisable lineage from the Hammett-Continental Op tradition: cynical, broken, half a step ahead, in possession of a partner named Darlene Roman whose patience for him keeps the novels going.
The case here, the disappearance of a young woman whose family does not particularly want her back, is the standard noir setup. The pleasure is the prose. Abramo writes with the kind of clean, slightly fatigued rhythm that the form rewards, and the San Francisco geography is rendered with a love that does not turn into postcard.
Four stars. A clean debut and the start of a small underread series. Recommended to readers who miss the heyday of American hard-boiled. Read in order.
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