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Steve Lopez is a columnist at the L.A. Times on live and culture in California. In the Clear is his third novel.
In the Clear
Albert LaRosa has spent his whole life just trying to get from yesterday to tomorrow. Born, raised, and now the sheriff of a small New Jersey island town, he was forced back to his hometown of Harbor Light after his shot at the big time as a cop in Philadelphia was destroyed by the events of one dark night. Twenty-five years and one marriage later, it looks as if life might finally give him a break. Albert is offered a job as chief of security at a new casino at a salary he has only dreamed of. Not that his dreams were ever very grand. Of course, not everyone in town is equally happy. Albert can live with the death threats. And the bombings. Even a dead body provides some professional excitement. He can take his father's tirades about selling out and he can cope with his girlfriend, Rickie, losing her business --- at least he's always been a good friend to her son, Jack. What bothers him is that he might have to arrest one of them for murder.
Steve Lopez's Summer Reading List
Backbone of the World
by Frank Clifford
A tour of the Continental Divide, filled with stories of characters holding on to a threatened way of life in the American West.
The Concrete Blond
by Michael Connelly
I have to read this book. Not only is Connelly the most accomplished voice on police procedure, but this Harry Bosch detective thriller opens with a murder in my Silverlake neighborhood in Los Angeles.
The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez
by Jimmy Breslin
Another book I have to read, given that I write columns for the L.A. Times, and in L.A., there are many, many Eduardo Gutierrezes.
The Pecking Order
by Jim Phelps
This book visits some of the same terrain Frank Clifford visits (the smalltown American West)except that Phelps writes fiction. I've never read Phelps, who divides his time between Colorado and Mexico, but have heard for years about his writing, humor, wit, and, mostly, his heart.
The Last City Room
by Al Martinez
The SF Bay Area in the 1960s, as witnessed by the salty characters in the newsroom of a dying newspaper. Knowing a little about both, I'm expecting sex and lies, and more sex and lies.
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