This Rancid Mill - Kyle Decker

 

I think that a friend recommended this on Facebook and since it takes place in the early 80’s in the LA punk scene that I lived in, I thought I’d give it a chance - and our library carried it!

The story revolves around the death of a Darby Crash- styled character (funnily Decker does mention the resemblance to Crash and his character) that is initially assumed to be a simple overdose but a “punk PI” thinks it might be something more.

The death takes place at the Starwood and he name checks places like Oki-Dogs, gives the characters believable (if a bit corny) punk names and everyone lives in a bit over the top squalor. Of course, there is a lovely young punk girl who had been the singer’s girlfriend who the PI has an eye for since she hired him - she is, naturally, the stereotypical rich-girl-slumming-as-a-punk. The stereotypes abound but maybe that’s for the rubes who know nothing of the scene.

Organized crime gets involved, as well as porn stars, drug dealers (natch) and way more as the investigation gets more complicated instead of less as it progresses. The main character drops into Al's Bar, apparently just to be able to name-check Al's Bar, mentions Bad Religion and Club 88 and even uses Richard Hell’s real name as an alias. Oddly, John Holmes is s reoccurring character - of course, there was some overlap in punk'n'porn, but odd that Decker uses a real-life celebrity, particularly for an unsympathetic character.

In any case, there is a roundabout plot with a senator and his runaway daughter who had hooked up with the dead punk singer and there's lots of violence'n'drugs as everyone tries to figure out who is playing who and the senator is trying to save his career and will go to any extreme to do so and, considering his connections to organized crime, there are plenty of extremes.

The PI takes a few wrong turns - he admits he learned his profession mostly from books'n'movies - and is almost killed more than once, but, with the help of some friends, he discovers the unhappy truth and solves the case, although no one is completely happy with the way things turn out.

I was hoping that I would like this more than I did. Again, maybe I am just being overly particular, but just thought it was ok, really, although fun to virtually revisit some old haunts.