Karma Doll

Fits neatly into the landscape of Chandler, Macdonald, Connelly and Crais * Los Angeles Daily News *
Thoroughly enjoyable... First-class pulp fiction -- Robbie Millen * The Times *
The language can be whimsical, but the violence is frequent and usually deadly * Critic *
Despite the lengthening trail of dead bodies he leaves behind in his earnest search for Nirvana, Happy Doll is a totally wondrous, wryly humorous creation. Roll on his next incarnation * Irish Independent *
Happy Doll is being hunted by some bad people... For his own safety - and our visceral pleasure - many wicked people are going to get what they deserve... It is impossible to read his antics without grinning or grimacing -- Mark Sanderson * The Times *
I cut my teeth on the gritty fiction of writers from Chandler to John D. and Ross MacDonald, so I loved this * Peterborough Telegraph *
Praise for the Happy Doll series * . *
I loved this book - it's quirky, edgy, charming, funny and serious, all in one. Very highly recommended -- Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series
A stiff shot of timeless Hollywood noir, spiked with black humour and leaving a warm glow as it goes down -- Chris Brookmyre, author of Quite Ugly One Morning
It's witty and funny and philosophical too... I hope there's more to come from this character -- Richard Herring
Like the streets of LA at night, Jonathan Ames's sentences are long and fast and can end in something fatal. The template, of course, is Raymond Chandler and especially Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer, with a dash of Chinatown... Its frequently macabre goings on [are] shot through with darkly comic flourishes. Motel, money, murder, madness: it has all you need to keep you happy * The Times, Thriller of the Month *
Doll is a unique addition to the Southern California crime-fiction scene, and Mr. Ames's new series holds great promise * Wall Street Journal *
A combination of dry wit, a satisfyingly high body count, and a nerve-tingling sense of pace make for a terrific seat-of-the-pants read -- Simon Brett, author of the Charles Paris Mysteries
Exceptional... Assured plotting, superb local color, and excellent prose... Readers will happily root for Doll, a good detective and a decent human, in this often funny and grisly outing * Publishers Weekly, starred review *
If Elliott Gould's Philip Marlowe landed in the middle of Uncut Gems, you'd have something like Jonathan Ames's A Man Named Doll, which expertly mines the dark humour, mordant wit and dreamy fatalism of great LA noir. And at its centre is a detective with a battered heart and bruised conscience. I'd follow him, and his dog George, anywhere * Megan Abbot, author of Dare Me *
A Man Named Doll infuses the private eye concept with an unpredictable, vibrant energy, while losing none of the genre's core, noir elements. Ames is a master of blending humor, pathos, and grit - and A Man Named Doll is no exception. A truly modern L.A. noir that still manages to feel timeless and steeped in the classics that came before * Alex Segura, author of Blackout *
A Man Named Doll is so fun and propulsive I didn't just read it in one sitting, I read it in what felt like a single breath. Happy Doll is a tremendously likable main character, and the Los Angeles he inhabits is vibrantly alive in every detail. I hope Jonathan Ames has many more adventures planned for the newest P.I. in town * Lou Berney, author of the New York Times-bestselling November Road *
A Man Named Doll is a smart, sharp, and stylish noir for the modern day. In his cinematic tour of Los Angeles that is both gritty and gorgeous, Ames has delivered a novel that is both current and timeless and has introduced a sleuth who fits all the old traditions while creating his own. Crime at its finest! -- Ivy Pochoda, author of These Women and Wonder Valley
Jonathan Ames has always been a fun writer to read... [In The Wheel of Doll] the eponymous gumshoe goes in search of an old love, who may or may not be real, in a case he probably shouldn't have taken in the first place * Lit Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2022 *
Buckle up for one hell of a ride in this comic noir caper starring "LA's most eccentric private eye"... Exhibiting Ames' wonderful sense of rhythm and ironic turn of phrase, this filmic thriller fuses offbeat humour with real heart and empathy for America's most vulnerable * The Bookseller *
When I reviewed Jonathan Ames' crime series opener, A Man Named Doll, I said I would follow his protagonist anywhere he went, no matter how strange the trip...In The Wheel of Doll, the ex-cop turned private investigator...travels through the Pacific Northwest and back to Los Angeles, encountering terrain so dark that repeated bodily injury seems like a respite...The journey takes Doll away from his beloved dog George and through the wreckage of his past and present, annihilating his desire for peace and upping his violence threshold to a near-unsustainable level. The repeated betrayals, shot through with a strain of romanticism, make this second Doll as memorable as the first. -- Sarah Weinman * The New York Times Book Review *
Jonathan Ames's second installment of his Happy Doll series does not disappoint. The Wheel of Doll moves at a breakneck pace, with characters that leave a strong impression, whether they make it out alive or not. Not a book for the faint of heart, The Wheel will satisfy neo-noir thrill-seekers (and dog lovers! George!) and literary fiction fans alike. * P&T Knitwear Bookstore (New York, NY) *
A Great Hard Boiled adventure for Detective Happy Doll. Down on his luck he's thrilled when the daughter of an old flame hires him to go looking for her missing mother. But all is not as it seems. Secrets and lies abound as Happy goes looking for trouble. Violent and lyrical this is my best Fall pick. * Main Point Books (Wayne, PA) *
Detective Happy Doll is back in business, if a bit worse for wear. When a young woman named Mary DeAngelo knocks on his door one night searching for her estranged mother, Doll realizes her mom is a woman, Ines, he once loved, only to have her vanish. Now Ines has made contact with Mary, only to vanish again. Unable to let sleeping dogs lie, Doll takes the case. -- Mackenzie Dawson * New York Post *
This follow-up to A Man Named Doll brings much of the same uncanny energy-raw violence, hard-boiled humor-with a new dash of pathos, as Doll goes on the search for an old flame he believed dead. Ames, as ever, plays with the full range of hardboiled tropes and brings out fresh nuances and something really quite startling in this contemporary PI novel. * Crime Reads *
Versatile writer Jonathan Ames (novelist, essayist, screenwriter) offers a contemporary noir with graceful writing and mordant humor...the detective's sardonic outlook is as important as the plotting, and the comforts of his narrative voice become even more vital as bodies begin to pile up. -- Dan Fesperman * The Washington Post *
Ames is a great writer. The body count and entertainment quotient are both high * The Times, Crime Club Pick of the Week *
The prose carries a charge without being self-conscious: the weltschmerz is pleasingly plangent; the spiralling mayhem of the plot beautifully orchestrated. Ames respects the sacred formula but riffs on it with wonderful freshness. Happy Doll looks set to rank with Marlowe, Lew Archer and Travis McGee as the hero of an endlessly rereadable series of PI novels * Telegraph *
Happy Doll is shaping up to be the perfect hardboiled 21st-century hero * Guardian, Best Crime and Thriller Novels of the Year *