Clea's Moon

Clea's Moon

by EdwardWright (Author)

Synopsis

Once he was Sierra Lane, hero to countless youngsters in a series of B-movie westerns. Now, after two years in prison, John Ray Horn lives on the margins of post-World War II Los Angeles. His wife has left him, and, blacklisted by the studios, he makes ends meet by collecting debts for his old Indian co-star, Joseph Mad Crow. Then he is shaken out of his cynicism and self-pity: an old friend, Scotty, contacts Horn to tell him about some obscene photos found in his dead father's possession - one, several years old, is of Clea, who was Horn's stepdaughter before his divorce. Within days, Scotty is dead, and Clea has run away. Horn is convinced these developments are linked, and sets off urgently to find Clea. His search takes him from neon-lit ocean-front piers to wooded canyons, from rich homes in the Hollywood Hills to Central Avenue, the Harlem of LA, a street rich in jazz and corruption. The backdrop is Los Angeles in the late 1940s, an adolescent city growing up fast, a city swallowing up its orchards and pastures, a city of equal parts sun and shadow. But will the on-screen tough-guy hero be able to sustain his role off-screen?

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Publisher: Orion
Published: 20 Feb 2003

ISBN 10: 0752852906
ISBN 13: 9780752852904
Book Overview: Winner of the CWA Debut Dagger Evocative and unusual late 40s LA setting Great series characters, and stylish, assured writing 'Excellent, exciting first novel, packed with period detail, written from the heart and suffused with rare feeling' Literary Review 'An excellent first novel, with a beguiling central character, that has the reader yearning for more.' - Oscar Tame, in 'Books of the Year', Publishing News This is the current winner of the Crime Writer's Association Debut Dagger Award and it certainly deserves such a distinction...a satisfying read, as it is so well-written and honest in its style of story-telling' Tangled Web
Prizes: Winner of Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Award 2001.

Media Reviews
Sierra Lane, once the hero of such films as Carbine Justice and Hell's Rockpile , has fallen on hard times. The one-time B-movie hero has turned to debt collecting to support himself, ironically working for his old Indian co-star. Contacted by a friend, Lane is shocked to be shown some obscene photographs of his stepdaughter. Soon the friend is dead in an accident . The two events dispel Lane's self pity, setting him off on an investigation: to the Hollywood Hills, Central Avenue, Harlem and, in a way, of himself. Set in Los Angeles of the 1940s, Wright's first novel manages the difficult act of balancing nostalgia, genre homage and excitement with ease. Lane's character, vulnerable and yet hard-bitten, is the archetypal noir hero, so successfully drawn that one feels that further volumes of his adventures are, rightly, inevitable.
Author Bio
Edward Wright grew up in Arkansas and has degrees from Vanderbilt University and Northwestern University. He was an officer in the U.S. Navy aboard destroyers for three years, training in anti-submarine warfare techniques. His major career has been journalism, and he has worked as an editor at the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. He and his wife, Cathy, live in the Los Angeles area.