The Immortal Game takes you on a tour of San Francisco – and I’m not talking about a nice tourist ride on the trolley. Riordan visits, among other places, a Victorian house-turned-drag-club called Stigmata and an exclusive S&M establishment known as the Power Station. And even while the reader is there, taking it all in with our hero, we’re never — well, not often, anyway — left feeling uncomfortable or like we shouldn’t be there poking around.
A black-and-white photo (Coggins is the photographer) opens each chapter. This not only adds to the authenticity of Riordan’s adventures, but acts almost like a not-so-subtle foreshadowing device. I like it. Coggins also uses cool chapter titles such as, “a detective or a punching bag,” and “honest dale’s used cars.” The entire atmosphere of this book is seedy yet classy and irreverent as hell.
Other readers have compared Coggins’s first novel to Chandler, but I think August Riordan is more fun than Philip Marlow.
From The Big Sleep: "She was trouble. She was tall and rangy and strong-looking. Her hair was black and wiry and parted in the middle. She had a good mouth and a good chin. There was a sulky droop to her lips and the lower lip was full."
From The Immortal Game:“She was sleek and dark and radiated sex appeal the way a Franklin stove radiates heat. She just about wilted me. She wore a black bolero jacket made of ultra-suede with little puffs at the shoulders over a flame-colored silk blouse.”
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