PHELAN'S FIRST CASE
Short Story Collection
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Texas enters the Akashic Noir Series arena with a dazzling array of terrifying, well-crafted short fiction. "Phelan’s First Case," a Beaumont-based contribution by Lisa Sandlin, is featured in Lone Star Noir and USA Noir.
Reviews
“All the heavy hitters…came out for USA Noir…an important anthology of stories shrewdly culled by Johnny Temple.”
—New York Times Review of Books, Editor’s Choice
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“So I'd start with Beaumont, with this Sandlin thing. Paydirt. Sandlin's tale of a young PI and his ex-con insinuation of a secretary was engaging as hell. The writing was brisk, the genre style familiar enough – not quite subversive, nowhere near trite. The plot was jake, too, but it was only a hanger for characters — the private dick Phelan and his canny amanuensis Delpha Wade — that you wanted to spend entire novels getting to know. Over too soon, the story, goddammit — as if it were too good to last.”
—Wayne Alan Brenner, The Austin Chronicle Full Review
Phelan's First Case Also Appears in Lone Star Noir
“Think of the book as a sort of criminal travelogue."
—David Pitt