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Michael Simon is one of the most brilliant voices in crime fiction today. His prose is informed by a world-weary wisdom that is only acquired through the payment of dear and bitter coin, and it is the jambalaya of Simon's vocational background --- he's been an educator, a playwright and a probation officer --- that gives the characters who wander with deliberate intent into and out of his novels their drossy film. There is also a quiet urban terror born of ill fortune that permeates his work, particularly that of LITTLE FAITH, his third novel in as many years to feature Dan Reles of the Austin Homicide Squad.
At the beginning of the book Reles finds himself embroiled in the dangerous politics of the Austin Police Department, even as he is assigned to investigate the lonely death of a teenager named Faith Copeland --- the "little Faith" of this dark novel's title. Copeland, it develops, is a one-time child actor whose illusory star rose and fell some time ago. How she came to die in a bathtub in an Austin slum tenement is only part of a riddle whose answer can be found miles from the rough streets where she lived and died.
Meanwhile, Reles also finds his personal life in a shambles. Simon, who seems incapable of writing a bad or wasted word, really shines when dragging his characters through the detritus of their romantic relationships. Any male readers who have found themselves attracted to (or have themselves attracted) women otherwise best avoided will find passages of LITTLE FAITH to be painful yet familiar and ultimately revelatory reading. The sad truth here is that twos don't date tens: Reles, despite his good intentions, is at heart badly damaged and continues to throw himself into the grinders.
An enigma to the Austin police force, the only New Yorker and the only Jew on the force, the imaginary bell around his neck is visible to all. It appears that he's unwelcome in the city in which he resides and serves, though he's not alone in Simon's vision of Austin. Nothing goes well, except for a privileged few, and no good deed goes unpunished, no matter how deeply someone is buried in the social strata. For but one: A police raid is erroneously visited upon a home where a children's party is being held, and an innocent mother is wrongfully imprisoned, which leads to a slow-motion, heart-rending tragedy. Simon lets things unravel right in front of the reader on the page, not around the corner or outside the book or anywhere else. The narrative chugs away to a bad end but is told in language so compelling that one keeps reading anyway. And the aftermath, as is so often the case, is worse than the preceding result.
Simon begins dropping bombs in LITTLE FAITH early on and doesn't let up until the very last page. However, don't mistake the uneasy quiet at the conclusion for the end of hostilities. Simon leaves enough unexploded ordinance lying around to ignite at least another few novels, and he is surely more than up to the task. Very highly recommended.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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