Krainin crafts the perfectly flawed hero in Bronze: haunted by his past and burdened by the predicaments of his present, this classic P.I. repeatedly entangles himself in attractions to dangerous women, namely his dalliance with his romance writer landlady, Iris, who keeps close tabs on Bronze herself, and the controversial bombshell Carolyn, newly widowed and with plenty of secrets of her own. Krainin pushes this gritty debut thriller to the max, pumping the stylized, hyper-masculine Bronze and showstopping femme fatales for all they’re worth—with villainous, well-to-do politicians with dark agendas in the mix, too.

Amid all the classic noir fun, Krainin’s hard-boiled hijinks don’t preclude complexity of character. Bronze is a contrast of macho-laced vulnerability, observing Carolyn’s “glamour of falseness” while he revels in his past Olympic judo skills, and his fascination with Carolyn borders on the obsessive, as “the sight of her engulf[s] him in an unbidden longing that pour[s] into the cracks of his heart.” Readers at times won’t know what to think of the lead, but the action satisfies, bolstered by last-minute escapes and shadowy assassins, with Bronze desperately trying to dodge the next bullet while floundering in his own flashbacks—and Iris muses that “it would be criminal not to squeeze at least part of a novel out of Bronze’s adventures.”

Takeaway: Hard-boiled PI dodges bullets—and his past—in this gritty D.C. thriller.

Comparable Titles: Paul Cain’s Fast One, Robert Dugoni’s A Killing on the Hill.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A