BAYOU CITY BURNING

Houston in 1961 was still considered a backwater Texas town most notable for its oil-rich barons, the sultry heat and humidity and the size of the mosquitoes that flourished on the Gulf Coast. Segregation was still an accepted way of life in the south and the civil rights movement was only in the prenatal stage. It is in this setting that D.B. Borton brings us “Bayou City Burning.” The two protagonists are Private Investigator Harry Lark and his daughter Dizzy, a precocious 12 year old budding entrepreneur and amateur sleuth who has learned most of Harry’s tricks of the trade. Dizzy and her pals are running a lost-and-found out of a garage when they’re “hired” to find a missing dad who was supposedly killed in a train wreck. Harry was hired to tail a couple of out-of-towners who think Houston would be the ideal place to build a NASA facility. As the two parallel investigations progress they eventually come together, which makes for an interesting storyline. Harry has a droll sense of humor and a penchant for getting into some dicey situations. Dizzy is a delightful chip-off-the-old-block and mature beyond her years. Think Nancy Drew on steroids. Even as convoluted as the two plot lines are, Borton intertwines them and they seamlessly come together. It works and it works well. Best of all though is Borton’s prose. Her writing is so well crafted, with subtle but meaningful metaphors that transport the reader into the narrative without force or artifice. This is writing so lyrical it fairly sings. Five stars.
My thanks to Net Galley for providing an ARC of “Bayou City Burning” scheduled for publication June 20, 2019.
#NetGalley #BayouCityBurning

BAYOU CITY BURNING (Harry and Dizzy Lark Book 1) by D.B. Borton is a new P.I. mystery story and the beginning of a new series. Set in Houston, TX in the 1960’s this father/daughter team are so much fun to get to know and follow as their separate investigations merge into one intriguing mystery case. Did I mention that Dizzy is only 12 years old?
P.I. Harry Lark is happy when a well-dressed out-of-towner shows up at his office. He has orthodontist bills to pay for his son. All he has to do is follow two men from D.C. and let his client know where they go in Houston and who they see. When Harry discovers he is not the only one following these men, he starts to wonder what his client is really interested in.
Desdemona “Dizzy” Lark is not your average 12 year old girl. She has started a business with her two best friends, B.D. and Mel out of her family’s garage. Lost and Found finds lost items collected from the neighborhood and you can have them returned or purchase them for a small trade or fee. Dizzy and her friends are Nancy Drew fans and Dizzy wants to become a P.I. just like her Dad.
As Dizzy and the girls are sitting around the garage, little 7 year old Sissy Heffelman walks up and tells the girls she wants them to find her daddy. An expensive Barbie doll was sent to Sissy on her birthday and she believes it is from her father even though he was supposedly killed in a terrible train wreck weeks before. They take Sissy’s case.
As the girls work their case, Harry’s client is killed in his office while searching for something after breaking in in the night. Harry has mobsters showing up from Chicago and Tampa all looking for something that Harry knows nothing about. Houston got rid of the mob years ago, so why are they back? All of a sudden in once quiet Houston there are bombings tied to picketers and the dockworkers are striking. When Harry and Dizzy begin to compare their cases, they find the two may be connected by a single incident.
This is such a fun, entertaining and intriguing mystery. Harry’s dialogue is filled with old-fashioned hard-boiled P.I. lingo that at first was a little jarring, but then it just blends right into the whole narrative and I could not imagine him talking any other way. It was especially entertaining when Dizzy used the same lingo. Harry and Dizzy have a unique relationship that had me laughing out loud at times. Set in the 1960’s, the author realistically writes about race relations, dirty politicians and the mafia. There are many twists and turns in this fast moving plot that kept me guessing.
I highly recommend this book and I cannot wait to read more mysteries with this father/daughter duo.

One of my new favorite books! This author has such a way with words the pages flew by in no time! I can’t wait to see the next work by this author! This was such a joy to read!

This is a gem of a book, and I highly recommend it. It's the summer of 1961 in Houston, and private detective Harry Lark is hired to look into a pair of visitors who have an interest in building a Space Center there. Then a man ends up dead, and Harry's focus changes.

Meanwhile, his 12 year old daughter Dizzy gets a case of her own. Dizzy and her friends are aspiring Nancy Drews, and when a little girl in the neighborhood comes to them asking to prove that her daddy didn't die in a recent train wreck, they learn the the highly improbable belief is actually possible..

The two cases cross paths, and father and daughter team up to solve each other's mysteries in a noir story that lives in the history of Houston during 1961.

I thoroughly enjoyed the characters of Dizzy and Harry. Their father daughter relationship is charming in a hard boiled detective story kind of way. I'm somewhat reminded of the relationship in the movie Paper Moon, and I'm not sure why.

And speaking of movies, I think this has a great potential to be considered for one. There is a diverse supporting cast, as the civil rights movement factors into the plot, and the equally diverse culture of Houston is well portrayed.

My only criticism is that, as smart as Dizzy is, I sometimes felt that her first person narrative sounded too adult for her character. But that's a minor complaint that I can forgive.

What a great historical fiction novel. Bayou City Burning was very well written and I could not put the book down until the very end. Cannot wait to read more from this author!

The story is about a seedy downtown office, where a well-dressed out-of-towner hires P.I. Harry Lark to tail two D.C. visitors looking to build NASA a space centre. The more Harry finds, the more he suspects he’s working for the wrong side and vows to wash his hands of the case. Meanwhile, Harry’s twelve-year-old daughter Dizzy is puzzling over a mystery of her own—she’s running a lost-and-found out of a suburban garage and is unexpectedly hired to find a missing dad who’s supposed to be dead and buried.