The Unfaithful Servant (Five Star First Edition Mystery) [Hardcover]

This is character driven, p.i. fiction very much in the Raymond Chandler tradition and not the sentimental and insipid who-done-its that have recently been making their way onto the best seller lists. Kyd is very much like Marlowe without sinking into imitation and self-parody as so many have. Like Marlowe, guilt and self-doubt eat away at him, and he is prone to getting beat up.

"Unfaithful Servant" never lags, and Harris' prose remains exciting throughout. Apparently Harris took a break from fiction to write screenplays, and Hollywood provides the background for this novel about the death of a producer, his widow, a major star whose career is about to fade, and his teenage son who forms a close bond with Kyd. The relationship between Kyd and the boy is very moving without ever becoming sentimental, and unlike the sanitized version often found in fiction, the boy feels real and very believable.

Here's hoping that Harris keeps the Kyd series going without taking another lengthy break! With all the detective fiction being published these days, this is the real thing -- the best I've read in years.

I've been waiting for a third one ever since, and now it's finally here. Fortunately, I only had to wait five years rather than 20, like some people. Unfaithful Servant picks up Harris's PI hero, Thomas Kyd, a quarter of a century after the first novel, in foggy Santa Monica. Kyd still hasn't entirely got over his Vietnam days, and the 1990s were apparently lost to booze and bad memories. (Maybe that's why we didn't hear from him.) Anyway, the good news is that the third book was well worth the wait and may even be the best in the series.

The basic story reads a bit like a cross between Hamlet and About a Boy. One evening Hugo Vine, a spoiled 14-year-old Hollywood rich kid with a face full of jewelry and a $15,000 wrist watch, shows up in Kyd's office hoping to get him to spy on his movie star mom and newly arrived step-father. Hugo thinks his late father, an old-school movie industry titan whom he worshiped, was murdered by his step-father, Raj, a suave arriviste with a talent for flattery; trouble is, no one else in the family seems to share his concern. Initially, Kyd brushes the boy off -- he's not about to take money from a teenager -- but a few months later they meet again, and this time he is dragged into the case.

This is very much a Hollywood novel, as well as a Los Angeles one, and Harris uses the inside dope he must have picked up as a screenwriter (he wrote Trading Places, among other movies) to superb effect. The scenes showing what it's like to share a house with a world-famous actress are brilliantly done, and the ability of hangers-on to gradually take control of the person who supposedly controls them is chillingly demonstrated. Also memorable are the various minor characters -- Corelle Lamb, the buff black female police officer with a heart of gold who helps Kyd out; Ken O'Doul, his alcoholic lawyer; and Serafina, the Mexican housekeeper who functions as Hugo's surrogate mom. There are also dead-on descriptions of Venice Beach poetry readings (the poets are nude), AA meetings in which half the people present are Hollywood big-shots, and many wonderful descriptions of L.A. itself.

What makes the book so genuinely moving -- and how many detective novels can you say that of? -- is Kyd's growing love for young Hugo, and the often very funny relationship that develops between them. Though he initially dislikes Hugo, he soon realizes that the boy needs a father figure in his life as desperately as he himself seems to need a son. What happens between them as Kyd solves the mystery of Hugo's father's death is what gives this novel its tremendous emotional punch. If you're a fan of detective fiction, or indeed any kind of fiction, you should definitely take a look.