Category: Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN-13: 9780425214367
Pub. Date: February 2007
Date Read: February 2008
Dope is a dark, little tale set in 1950s New York. Forget stereotypes of the 50s, this isn’t about the golden age of cinema or the development of the American suburbs, this novel is about the dangerous and seedy life of a reformed drug addict.
Joesephine, Jo, Flannigan is trying to stay clear of durgs but still has to shoplift and pickpockets to earn a living so when she’s asked by a lawyer and his wife to help them find their eighteen-year-old daughter, Nadine, she accepts the job. After all how hard can it be to find a college student who has fallen into the drug world that Jo is still all too familiar with?
Jo’s investigations take her back to her old haunts and to visit with people she once knew and along the way she resists the temptation of dope. All the characters are quite suspicious and with a hint of malice, including Jo’s friend and lover Jim and even the cops Jo tangles with on several occasions.
As Jo continues to question shady characters she begins to realize that no one cares about a young woman gone missing and the investigation becomes more of a personal quest.
Although the story had lots of twists and turn which should served to keep the reader engaged, it was hard to feel for any of the characters who seemed unredeemable. I was more impressed by Gran’s novel Come Close.