Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway

By: Sara Gran

Narrated by: Carol Monda

When Paul Casablancas, Claire DeWitt’s ex-boyfriend and a popular musician in the Bay Area scene, is found dead in his apartment, his cherished guitars missing, the police are convinced it’s a simple robbery. But Claire knows that nothing is ever simple. With the help of her new assistant, Claude, Claire follows the clues, finding hints to Paul’s fate in her other cases - especially a long-ago missing girl in New York’s gritty East Village and a modern-day miniature-horse theft in Marin.

As visions of the past reveal the secrets of the present, Claire begins to understand the words of the enigmatic French detective Jacques Silette: "The detective won't know what he is capable of until he encounters a mystery that pierces his own heart." And love, in all its forms, is the greatest mystery of all - at least to the world’s greatest P.I.

With a heroine hailed as "a charmer" (New York Times Book Review), from an author who "reminds me why I fell in love with the genre" (Laura Lippman), this is an addictive new adventure for an irresistible detective.

©2013 Sara Gran (P)2013 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

• 10 Best Audiobooks of 2013 (Salon)

"As written by Gran, Claire is as much mystical seeker as investigator, a disciple of a mysterious master detective whose book, "Détection," has a tendency to appear in strange places at key moments. But Claire is also as hardboiled as they come, and no one could deliver her unconventional first person narration better than Monda, who can be tough, melancholy and tender all at the same time." (Laura Miller, Salon)

“Narrator Carol Monda is terrific in this second Claire DeWitt detective story. Her deep voice manages the detached, no-nonsense affect of Jack Webb in the old "Dragnet" TV series while still making the listener care about Claire…Monda does everything right. Her men sound masculine. Women sound like women. And when she quotes Jacques Silette, Claire's detecting mentor, Monda's French accent is convincing.” ( AudioFile)

"In her second outing, tattooed cokehead Claire DeWitt puzzles over the murder of an ex-boyfriend. There's absolutely nothing predictable about either the multilayered investigation—cloaked in references to Indian scriptures, Thomas Merton, and cheesy 1980s TV mysteries—or DeWitt herself, who charms despite her fraying life. A" ( Entertainment Weekly)

"The high-stepping, coke-snorting, Zen-loving heroine of Sara Gran's new novel is something of a mess, but she's also the most interesting private eye I've encountered since Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander. . . .She mostly follows her intuition, along with the precepts laid down by the great (and fictional) French detective Jacques Silette, who said things like, 'Solutions wait for you, trembling, pulling you to them, calling your name, even if you cannot hear.'" ( Washington Post)

Stunning sentences.

Noir vibe. Super smart sentences that alternate between humor, philosophical reflection, life lessons, and hard facts. Performance? Holy mackerel!! Hats off to Carol Monda.

Perfect Match: Author and Reader

Sara Gran is my new fave detective author. Claire DeWitt seems to have grown up on hard-boiled dicks & Gran has invented the perfect "best friend" to share insights and prod action: an old French how-to detective book. Carol Monda is a superb reader--just a great combo. I loved Claire D-W & the City of the Dead. This one is great too. We need more, more more!

So.Forking.Good.

Just re-read this with the new book out. Now I remember why the Claire deWitt books are top of my list for people looking for a good detective series.

Best Series

The freshest, most compelling mystery series I’ve read since the early Mary Russell books. Claire DeWitt and the world of Silettian detection are different from anything else out there. The characters are vivid, convincing and moving. The milieu is familiar and strange at the same time; our own world, with some strange overlay. From the other reviews, one must assume it’s not for everyone. But if it’s for you, these might be among your favorite books ever.

Do so many drugs need to be involved!

I enjoyed her first book so I bought the second one but I’m not sure that I will be purchasing the third one. I’m not offended/opposed when drugs are used to enhance the storyline. However, it seems this writer defaults to Claire using unbelievable amounts of cocaine and stealing drugs from any house she visits. I don’t think it adds to the story if anything it takes away from the excellent underlying threads she weaves linking past to present. Again, I will have to really consider purchasing her third book.