Ghost of a Flea

Praise for Ghost of a Flea

“James Sallis’s Lew Griffin series has distinguished itself by the moodiness of its New Orleans atmosphere, the jagged elegance of its narrative style and the expansiveness of its anti-hero’s literary citations . . . Dead men don’t tell tales, or so the saying goes. But the tale told by this one is extraordinary.”
—The Washington Post

“The poet Sallis betrays himself on every page with an inordinate desire to capture a nuance of light, essence of cat or waver of a farewell. His prose style is witty, elliptical and heady with image and allusion; his bedrock underlying purpose is nothing less than an exploration of meaning and identity . . . Ghost of a Flea bears the marks of a fierce and original writer working at full power.”
—Los Angeles Times

“This is a superb book: beautiful, lyrical, moving . . . Ghost of a Flea sets an impressive yardstick.”
—Barcelona Review

“Allusive and stylish, this stark metaphysical landscape will leave a resounding impression.”
—The Guardian

Praise for the Lew Griffin Novels

“One of the most inventive and affecting sagas in recent crime fiction. Lew Griffin is an African-American private detective in New Orleans (and a poet and teacher) who specializes in finding missing persons. Griffin’s moral intelligence and questioning mind fold a noir perspective into post-existential angst. And of course there’s New Orleans, full of dangerous mirage.” 
—Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal 

“Beautifully captures the struggle between despair and hope within Griffin’s soul, and the piquant savor of a curiosity that—like New Orleans itself—refuses to die.”
—The Seattle Times

“Sallis is a sure hand—characters and prose, of course, dialogue, too, but he is also a subtle weaver of plot, with the perfect level of push. His descriptions evoke a place that seems to fully exist just around the corner, and his people speak and sweat and live and die and it’s all a great pleasure.” 
—Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter’s Bone

“Richly atmospheric, haunting, utterly compelling, the Lew Griffin novels are really cool. James Sallis is an outstanding crime writer—an outstanding writer period.”
—Frances McDormand
 
“James Sallis is doing some of the most interesting and provocative work in the field of private eye fiction. His New Orleans is richly atmospheric and darker than noir.”
—Lawrence Block

“One of the most intriguing, disturbing, literate, intelligent novels I’ve read in years, and Lew Griffin is one of the most flat-out human detectives since Marlowe. There’s enough story here for three good novels, but Sallis crafts them into one truly fine one.”
—David Bradley, author of the PEN/Faulkner Award–winning book The Chaneysville Incident
 
“One of the most enjoyable and most important writers working today, James Sallis has quietly revolutionized an entire genre of literature. If you don’t ordinarily read crime fiction, you will love these books. if you do read crime fiction, you will never look at it the same after meeting Lew Griffin.”
—Sara Gran, author of the Claire DeWitt novels

“Poetic, complex, and multidimensional, James Sallis insect-titled crime novels about New Orleans detective Lew Griffin . . . are unlike any other you’re likely to crack open.”
—Los Angeles Times
 
“James Sallis breathes new life into the wheezing detective genre with Lew Griffin, a black resident of the seamier side of New Orleans . . . Griffin is an original creation, a loner who, in the classic private eye tradition, does things his own way, in his own time.”
—San Francisco Chronicle & Examiner 
 
“Sallis is a masterful stylist in the contemporary crime-writing scene who clearly knows that in real life, the truth doesn’t always appear neatly gift-wrapped in a pretty package.”
—Lansing State Journal
 
“Skillfully weaving Mr. Griffin’s past into the tapestry of the novel, Mr. Sallis has put together a mystery that is more than a mystery: it is the definition of a man’s life.”
—The Dallas Morning News