Review: Angelino Heights by Adam Bregman

Synopsis: When Dalton Everest, a naive school teacher with a crackerjack, free-form way of expressing himself, forms a fast friendship with Nathan Lyme, a charmer who’s cagey about his employment, everything Dalton knew of his previous life is swiftly upended.

Set up by Nathan to fall hard for Melanee, a frequently drunk French girl and former purse snatcher, Dalton ends up in a pickle and then, paranoid out of his wits, is ultimately chased through the streets of downtown L.A.

Angelino Heights is a crime novel obsessed with Los Angeles. It traipses across the city from a crooked pawn shop in Cudahy to a secretive mecca of modernism protruding from a hill in Pasadena to the old timey dive and themed bars, where its protagonists drink up the atmosphere of old L.A. 

Firstly - apologies to Adam for my tardy review. Secondly - what a great read!

I love noir! And this is a compelling tale of a solid citizen's flirtation with the dark side that has ultimately led to where they find themselves. Bregman takes his reader on a mystery tour of the seedy side of Los Angeles as we follow mild mannered school teacher Dalton Everest as he is slowly seduced over to the dark side by one Nathan Lyme. 

The reader never really discover's Lyme's motive in his selection (or targeting) of Everest as his partner, accomplice, patsy, fall-guy . Nor do we ever really discover what made Everest so susceptible to Lyme's charms, for Lyme does manage to have a certain hold over those in his immediate sphere. 

However, I strongly suspect that it all boils down to that need to walk the fine line between good and bad, a flirtation with danger; and like the old style sobriety test, some just never manage to stay on that straight line.

LAPD Detective Orlando Talbert sums it up nicely, "... they sure don't make crazy white dumbfucks like they used to ..."