Noir

With impeccable skill, Robert Coover, one of America�'s pioneering postmodernists, has turned the classic detective story inside-out. Here Coover is at the top of his form; and Noir is a true page-turner���ry, absurd, and desolate.

You are Philip M. Noir, Private Investigator. A mysterious young widow hires you to find her husband�'s killer���f he was killed. Then your client is killed and her body disappears���f she was your client. Your search for clues takes you through all levels of the city, from classy lounges to lowlife dives, from jazz bars to a rich sex kitten�'s bedroom, from yachts to the morgue. ���he Case of the Vanishing Black Widow���unfolds over five days aboveground and three or four in smugglers�' tunnels, though flashback and anecdote, and expands time into something much larger. You don�'t always get the joke, though most people think what�'s happening is pretty funny.

Praise for the work of Robert Coover
���s his dazzling career continues to demonstrate, Mr. Coover is a one-man Big Bang of exploding creative force.������i>The New York Times

���t age 75, Coover is still a brilliant mythmaker, a potty-mouthed Svengali, and an evil technician of metaphors. He is among our language�'s most important inventors.������en Marcus