The Lost Coast (Moses Wine Mystery) - Hardcover

"In the half-light, she too seemed almost like a 20-year-old girl, the one I had first seen being hoisted in a wicker basket by war protesters into the occupied Berkeley Administration Building while the crowd applauded both her guts and her beauty. 'I hate time,' I said." That's Moses Wine, the famed hippy detective (remember Richard Dreyfus in The Big Fix?), reunited with his ex-wife as they try to help their son evade a trap set by over-the-top ecologists, feds, and nasty business types. The whole book has the sweet, sad, slightly sappy tone of that quote--"nostalgia leavened with honesty"--and Roger Simon's topnotch writing and plotting skills haven't lost many steps.

- "Roger Simon remains the shining hope in a field of endeavor glutted by mediocrity and boring repetition--the only mystery writer of his generation worthy to be placed alongside Ross Macdonald on the shelf."