Another grim, brutal exploration of the darker sides of human nature

For some people there are no rules, only prices…

This place is a crime that can’t be solved. And that’s why we love it.

LA is a brutal, burning city. It is America with nowhere to run. Each night Jake Deal captures it on a livestream to his blood-hungry subscribers. Above board, Doug Gibson is a street lawyer trying to fix the system one case at a time. Underground, Kara Delgado is working for a private concierge company – a make-a-wish foundation for the terminally rich.

When Kara’s best friend Phoebe goes missing, she soon finds herself in the worlds of both Jake and Doug. Will the remaining humanity of this fragile team kill them all or expose one enormous, unspeakable crime?

Jordan Harper has fast become a must-read author for me. His novels are consistently gripping, unafraid to venture into the darker corners of human nature and what the powerful can get away with. A Violent Masterpiece is no exception, and examines the worst-possible-scenario of Hollywood power and corruption.

This novel is told from the perspectives of a handful of characters connected to the rich and powerful of Los Angeles, each of which providing their own flavour of Los Angeles and the ways it can change you. There’s Jake Deal, a live-streamer who traverses the city at night, lead by his police scanner — it’s almost inevitable that some will connect his character to Jake Gyllenhaal’s in Nightcrawler. He’s something of a poet of the night and crime, waxing lyrical and pontificating about the city and its dark, rotten underbelly. Connected through past gigs to others connected to the elite, he’s eventually hired by an anonymous party to dig up dirt about a selection of power-players.

Meanwhile, Doug Gibson is a lawyer dedicated to social justice and helping those who don’t have the means to hire powerful and connected lawyers if/when they break the law. When we first meet him, he’s helping a homeless person who’s been charged with murder. He spends a long time trying to track her down, bring her a new tent and other supplies she might need. All of this with a backdrop of a city’s authorities who are gearing up for a homeless clearance operation. He’s called in to meet with a recently-arrested, formerly-powerful pedophile, and what follows is a cryptic-and-tantalizing conversation about the city’s most powerful string-pullers. From here, Gibson comes face-to-face with how quickly one’s life can be turned upside down if the Powers That Be decide you have become an irritant.

The third POV character is Kara Delgado, an elite concierge for the rich and famous. The chapters from Kara’s perspective really illustrate the “there are no rules, only prices” aspect of Harper’s novel. Through her work, we get a glimpse of the debauched, careless events that go on in Los Angeles. All the while, she’s trying to discover what happened to her best friend — and  the person who brought her into the gig — who recently disappeared without a word.

Gradually, these three characters are brought together in an investigation into a possible serial killer operating in LA — and one who may well be a very prominent individual. Are authorities turning a blind eye? Are they complicit? Are they oblivious and inept? Maybe all three? The three protagonists dig into this mystery, with differing degrees of enthusiasm and investment, and end up bumping up against the worst of the worst in Tinseltown.

A Violent Masterpiece is a pretty grim and often harrowing read. The author doesn’t hold back when discussing the worst qualities that some people have. It’s unvarnished, but nor does it feel sensationalized. Perhaps its because the world is a pretty dark and horrible place at the moment, any exaggeration that Harper might put into the novel doesn’t feel as exaggerated as it might have if the novel had come out a decade ago. The three protagonists are very well-drawn and written, and have distinctive and engaging voices.

If you’re a fan of dark, gritty crime fiction, and certainly those that have been described as modern noir, then I highly recommend you read Jordan Harper if you haven’t already. His novels are superb, engaging, and pack quite the punch.

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Jordan Harper’s A Violent Masterpiece is due to be published in the UK by Faber on June 4th; it’s out now in North America, published by Mulholland Books.

Also on CR: Review of Everybody Knows

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Review copy received via NetGalley