Strangely charming cosy noir mystery set in contemporary Los Angeles, but with a snobby English main character - it shouldn't work but due to the effortless writing and the great characters it really does! The plot is convoluted and silly, but not confusing at all.
The best thing about the book for me was the descriptions of LA - they evoked a very specific time for the city, and having an English view of them (the author is English, and lived in LA for a time) helped to ground me as a reader too.
I will look into more from this author!

I read this quite some time ago, and forgot to publish my review!

It's a good read, and Lucky is an interesting protagonist and guide to Los Angeles. He's been in the city since the "golden days" of pre-blockbuster Hollywood. It's a quickly-paced mystery, populated by interesting characters. Should appeal to fans of Carl Hiaasen, I think, especially if they'd like to read something set in LA.

This is a wonderfully humourous and quirky book set in Los Angeles, Lucius 'Lucky' Kluge is impoverished minor British aristocracy who fancied himself as a screenwriter and along with his best friend, Glyn Perkins, moved to LA thinking they were more likely to succeed there. Years later, Lucky is working for Bart's Antique Emporium and attending estate sales of the deceased for the store. He has special privileges with Cleo Habibi in accessing items before the general public, and selects several items from comic illustrator Marty Kann's estate. His co-worker, buddy and general funnyman, Raul Gupta, is his companion on his non super hero adventures.

Lucky and Raul find themselves investigating when Bart is assaulted along with the store being broken into. A cookie pot is stolen and there seems to be interest in 'The Blackbird', which baffle our duo. In a city where many are identified by their likenesses to movie stars, our heroes walk the not so mean streets to get to the bottom of these mysteries, given that the police show little interest. In addition, Abby Musker, an old friend of Lucky's, wants him to locate Glyn, who has gone missing. Lucky has not seen Glyn ever since he became a writer for superhero movies that have been wildly successful. Lucky has never rated superhero film writing so their partnership broke down. Plus Glyn married Bijou, who used to be Lucky's girlfriend. This has Lucky remembering his failed writing career. Lucky and Raul travel around LA getting to the bottom of the strange puzzles, whilst attempting to deliver a tanker table to Whitney, a reality TV star, that Raul has a crush on

There is a feel of hippie cool dudes engaged in comic banter in the story which the author captures really well. The characters are what makes this novel a real pleasure to read, even the minor ones. The Lucky and Raul relationship works fantastically well together, they are loyal to each other although Lucky only really understands how good Raul is as a stand up comedian at the end. I hope there is a sequel as this novel is brilliant. Highly recommended. Thanks to Random House Cornerstone for an ARC..

A screwball comedy mystery set in LA - I found this a quick read.
Lucius moved from the UK to Malibu years back as a budding Hollywood writer and stayed, even after his girl, best friend and work went up in smoke. Now an ageing apprentice to an antiques dealer, he spends his time driving around LA with his co-worker Raul buying and selling. When Lucius' boss has his head staved in as an antique is ransacked, the mystery kicks into gear.

Lucius is a no-hoper who puts a lot of effort into trying to quit smoking and avoiding going to see his partner do stand-up comedy. The female characters seem an afterthought at best - this is a buddy adventure movie in book form, and a slightly bitter one. With the author's obvious love of LA, sharp character sketches movies, and wisecracking dialogue, Smoke Over Malibu has plenty to entertain.