This is the last book in a trilogy, and the last book ever written by Mercedes Lambert; a pseudonym. It was published posthumously. Ghosttown contains an afterword written by Lucas Crown, a longtime friend of Douglas Ann Munson - The author's real name. It is one of the most moving true-life stories I have ever come across.
Authors are a unique bunch of people to begin with, but Douglas Munson's life, and her story as conveyed by Lucas Crown, makes her a modern kind of saint-oddity, much like an Emily Dickinson.
I read upwards of 250 novels/year. I get most of my books at the library - imagine the cost otherwise! So, an author has to really grab me for me to actually buy the book(s).
Douglas Munson wrote with a heart-gouging honesty I have rarely found among even the best of our present-day storytellers. She, more than any other modern writer I have encountered, poured the deepest recesses of herself into these stories; Dogtown, Soultown and Ghosttown. We deserve to read this gift she has given.........

After reading a great review about it written by a friend of Mercedes Lambert in a magazine, I decided to give it a read. The story takes place in Los Angeles with many references to certain areas, but probably confusing for non-Angelenos. The plot gets muddled in poor narration. After a while, I lose track of which character committed which act. Especially poor is the bad use of the characters' quotations. The editor of the book should've made those corrections.

I didn't want to spend any more time finishing the book.

Los Angeles attorney Whitney Logan has allowed her need for alcohol to dull her constant depression and somewhat derail her professional career. Still she tries to do her best by her clients. However, her latest, court-appointed client for her to defend, Tony Red Wolf, is so churlish, Whitney would like to find him another attorney even if he is handsome.

She gets him out of jail on bail, but that same night he asks her to meet him. Reluctantly she does only to have Tony show her the battered bludgeoned corpse of a girlfriend of his; he swears he did not kill her. Although she has doubts about his plea of innocence and deeper trepidation whether she can handle a homicide defense, which in turns spirals her dark personal feelings to even greater levels, Logan begins making inquiries into the L.A. based Native American culture.

The depressing Whitney is a refreshing protagonist as her dark world is very vividly described yet interwoven throughout this exciting legal thriller. The story line is fast-paced, filled with twists and provides insight into the Native American community living in Los Angeles, but as with Logan's two previous tales (see SOULTOWN and DOGTOWN), the tale is owned by the tough yet vulnerable heroine. In an opening appreciation by Michael Connolly, readers learn that Mercedes Lambert was the pseudonym of Douglas Anne Munson who passed away in 2003; her urban noir legal thrillers pay homage to her skills and it is so fitting that the final sentence to this superb novel is "Farewell my lovely".

Harriet Klausner