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The Infinite Blacktop
The Infinite Blacktop: A Novel | Sara Gran
20 posts | 16 read | 31 to read
The delicious and addictive (Salon) Claire DeWitt series returns with a thrilling noir mystery that follows three separate narratives starring the self-proclaimed worlds greatest detective. As Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls raves, these novels are cryptic, dreamy, funny and gritty as hellClaire DeWitt is an unreliable detective unlike any other. Claire DeWitt, the hard-living and tough-talking private investigator, has always been something of a detective. As a young girl growing up in Brooklyn, Claire and her two best friends, Tracy and Kelly, fell under the spell of the book Detection by legendary French detective Jacques Silette. The three solved many cases together and were inseparableuntil the day Tracy vanished without a trace. That is still the only case Claire ever failed to solve. Later, in her twenties, Claire is in Los Angeles trying to get her PI license by taking on a cold case that has stumped the LAPD. She hunts for the real story behind the death of a washed-up painter ten years earlier, whose successful and widely admired artist girlfriend had died a few months before him. Today, Claire is on her way to Las Vegas from San Francisco when shes almost killed by a homicidal driver. In a haze of drugs and injuries, she struggles off the scene, determined to find her would-be killers identitybut the list of people who would be happy to see her dead is not a short one. As these three narratives converge, some mysteries are solved and others continue to haunt. But Claire, battered and bruised, continues her search for the answer to the biggest mystery of all: what is the purpose of our lives, and how can anyone survive in a world so clearly designed to break our hearts again and again?
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thebeercolonel
Pickpick

Clever, thoughtful, funny & quirky. If you want a PI novel written from a very different angle then this nad the other two Claire DeWitt novels are for you.

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charl08
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Ha!

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charl08
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I bought little bags of cocaine and heroin and snorted them or jumped in the cold ocean or got tattoos or got in fights or slept with strangers to see if I was real. I still wasn't sure.

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Mitch
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Pickpick

Three strands of story - intertwine to get to a solution to creates more questions than answers - not your standard mystery! The self claimed best detective in the world is charming, broken and no stranger to hard living. Eccentric plotting, some weird old fashioned language, and some very bizarre scenarios - it was both hard boiled mystery and Victorian Sherlock Homes inspired drama. Never read anything like it!

charl08 Sounds like fun! Adding it to the wishlist. 5y
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Mitch
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So for the next 100 pages I‘ve got some book flipping to do! Seems like someone needs to go back to printing school! 🤣

squirrelbrain What?! 😮 5y
Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks 😳😳😳 5y
Lucy_Anywhere 😬 Ooops! 5y
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Scochrane26 Never saw that before 5y
jen_the_scribe Oh wow! 5y
Hooked_on_books This would drive me crazy! I hope at least the pages are in order. 5y
Mitch @Hooked_on_books oh yeah - it‘s driving me crazy! (edited) 5y
CoffeeNBooks Oh no! 😳 5y
Birdsong28 You should contact the publisher about this. 📚📖 5y
Sace Oh my! 😱 5y
72 likes12 comments
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Mitch
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When your bookcover matches the 2 cats sleeping on your lap! #catsoflitsy #perfectsaturday

vivastory I've only read one Gran, but I really liked it 5y
Mitch @vivastory heard about this on the NY Library podcast. It‘s not at all what I imagined! Only 50pages in though, so early days! 5y
77 likes2 comments
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Nute
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#CoverCrush #7Covers7Days

Would you like to show us some of your favorite book covers @MrT ? No explanation needed. Post a photo of that moving cover art and tag one Litten each day for the week. Can‘t wait to see what you got! Have fun!!💕

Day Seven:
The Infinite Blacktop by Sara Gran
Cover Design by Alex Merto

wanderinglynn That is a stunning cover! 5y
hilded So cool!! 5y
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valeriegeary
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"In my mind's eye the rest of my life poured out ahead of me: black tar on an endless road, dark and alone. It would be a long series of empty moments that took me down an infinite highway to nowhere in particular. Happiness would always be around the next corner-- but never here, never now, never on this road."

JennyM Ooof - and great pic! 5y
Cinfhen I read another book by this author and found her prose really good!! Great photo 😊 5y
valeriegeary @Cinfhen This series (Claire DeWitt) is pretty great. It breaks my heart in places but I don't mind so much. ☺️ 5y
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Cinfhen Didn‘t realize this was part of a series 5y
valeriegeary @Cinfhen and this is three! 🤗 They work pretty good as stand alones but a bit of depth is added when read all together 5y
Cinfhen Great!! I‘m going to see if Hoopla or overdrive has book one !!! 5y
Cinfhen Hoopla has all 3 book!!! I will try to get to them in a few weeks. Thanks for the suggestion ❤️ 5y
valeriegeary @Cinfhen hurrah for hoopla! It's a very noir-feeling, existential kind of mystery series. I loved it but there were moments I got super frustrated with Claire for her choices.. Anyway... Looking forward to seeing what you think! 🤞 5y
46 likes8 comments
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valeriegeary
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Starting the third book in the Claire DeWitt detective series today. #porchreading #dogsoflitsy #charliewaffles

LeahBergen Someone‘s comfy on their little bed. 😉 5y
57 likes1 stack add1 comment
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kay89
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I solved every mystery I came across. Except my own.

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gradcat
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1. Across the bayou and down the road a ways, my nearest neighbors have chickens. I find them so beautiful...and they‘re actually sweet. They come right up to your hand.
2. In a word, no. I love my house, but hate my city.
3. I would recommend anything by Sara Gran (I just finished the tagged novel).
4. Late night—after 9 pm, usually.
5. I‘m a day late, of course, but last night (while reading), I had wine, cheese & tomolives...yum!

#friyayintro

Freespirit I agree chickens are great. I have 11 and they all have individual personalities😊 6y
ShananigansReads “Down the road a ways” is such a southern thing to say 😍😂 6y
gradcat @Freespirit There was a white one who would come to visit in my backyard...she was sooo cool, I loved her. She hasn‘t come in weeks now, and I‘m scared to ask why 😕 6y
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gradcat @Bookjunkie57 I know, right? We always say “across the way” too...across what way?!? Always cracks me up 😂 6y
Freespirit She may be clucky @gradcat that‘s when they sit on their eggs (for 21 days if they are having chics). Hopefully it‘s that and not a fox😬 6y
Crazeedi @gradcat I'm from the north and i say down the road a ways and across the way too! Maybe it's my Appalachian heritage?!😁 6y
gradcat @Crazeedi Not sure, but I don‘t have any Appalachian heritage...at least, I don‘t think I do! 😂 6y
64 likes7 comments
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gradcat
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Pickpick

Can I give this book 5 million stars? I don‘t even know where to start with this, and it has a lot to do with me personally. I loved this book so much—sometimes I laughed out loud, once I actually caught myself crying—that I will read anything Sara Gran ever writes. This character, Claire DeWitt, is so authentic, so real...and she can be quite dark at times, but she is so powerful on the page that I daresay anyone, especially women, will be ⬇️

Kaye Great review ! 6y
gradcat ⬆️ hard-pressed not to feel her pain deep in the soul. The writing is so poetic, I must have underlined & marked huge swaths, notes written everywhere. Gran is capable of being psychically authentic, socially aware and philosophically learned all in the same paragraph. And for those of you that are students of philosophy, see if you don‘t hear the voice of Derrida (RIP) rattling around the über text. I highly recommend this book. #Booked2019 6y
gradcat @Cinfhen @BarbaraTheBibliophage @4thhouseontheleft Doh!! Oops, I did it again...forgot to add the hashtags, so here goes: #Booked2019 #FemaleDetective 6y
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gradcat @kaye 🥰 6y
Cinfhen Wow!!!! What a stellar review #stacked 6y
gradcat @Cinfhen Thank you 🙏 You know, you‘re really fantastic for my ego 🥰 6y
Cinfhen Hahaha!! But this time I‘m not bullshitting 6y
gradcat @Cinfhen Thanks again for that! You may already know this...but for you & others who may stack this book, it is the third in the Claire DeWitt series. Imho, you might want to read the series in order... Another oopsy 😬! I should have noted this in my review 🙊! @BlameJennyJane (edited) 6y
BlameJennyJane @gradcat I was just doing my research on that and was able to download the first in the series from Hoopla! Thanks for the character profile too; I need a new protagonist to fall in love with! 😀 6y
Cinfhen Ha!!! Thanks for that info.... I usually don‘t like jumping in the middle of a series 6y
gradcat @BlameJennyJane @Cinfhen Sooo glad I remembered... (edited) 6y
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gradcat
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Soubhiville Nice! 6y
gradcat @Soubhiville 😊❤️ 6y
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Decalino
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Pickpick

In this third entry in the series, Claire DeWitt faces down a dangerous opponent in the present while we learn more about her past. Claire is brutal and ruthless in her pursuit of the truth, yet I spent much of the book deeply afraid for her. This series is so crazy and dark, a never-ending detective story where the ultimate mystery is identity itself. If existential noir were a genre, it would the perfect example.

readordierachel I just read her demon possession novel, Come Closer, a few months back and really enjoyed it. Will have to check this series out! 6y
Decalino @readordierachel Ooh, I will have to look for that one! 6y
12 likes2 comments
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mcipher
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@Suzze you have got to get yourself some snickerdoodle hot cocoa - so good!!
@ basically everyone - if you have not read Sara Grans‘s Claire DeWitt series, do yourself a favor and please do. She is firmly one of my favorite writers and as I (sadly - why is this not longer!?) get close to the end of book 3, I‘m just in awe of her writing and her weird beautiful melancholy yet hopeful mysteries. ❤️

DivineDiana Love this post! Two questions. 1- Where do I find Snickerdoodle Hot Chocolate? 2- What is the first book in the series? 6y
mcipher @DivineDiana 1 - The hot chocolate was in my #FFFS box from @Suzze - I believe it‘s from Amazon? 2 - This is book 3, the first one is 6y
DivineDiana Thanks so much! Stacking the first one! And checking Amazon! 😉 6y
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mcipher @DivineDiana I hope you love both! 6y
Suzze @DivineDiana Yes, Amazon. Land o Lakes snickerdoodle hot chocolate. 6y
DivineDiana @Suzze Thank you! I wonder if there is butter in it? 🤔 6y
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Well-ReadNeck
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It‘s release day for the latest installment of the Claire DeWitt mysteries!!!!!!!

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FantasyChick
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Pickpick

I wasn't really sure on this one since it is a third in a series and I'm not really one for detective novels, but I was hooked! I didn't even feel like I was missing much for not reading the previous books. I'll be keeping an eye out for more. Also...I'm pretty sure Claire DeWitt is my spirit animal.....minus the drug addiction 😄
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
#NetGalleyReads #5StarReads

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Well-ReadNeck
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Pickpick

#netgalley

This was my first Sara Gran. I love a funny mystery series and this has it all: noir; funny; smart. I read this as a stand alone but read a review that said the this book answered questions from an earlier book. Adding the two previous Claire DeWitt books to my TBR!!

Well-ReadNeck WTF with my weird semicolons?! 🧐 6y
JanJan I am dying to read this! I loved the first two! 6y
kyraleseberg I just finished the first book in the series to prepare for this ARC and I really enjoyed it! 6y
110 likes3 stack adds3 comments
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Liberty
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AHHHHHH A NEW SARA GRAN!!! This is the best surprise ever! Cancel all my plans, I‘m reading this RIGHT NOW. 🖤

susanw Totally cool cover! 🖤 7y
109 likes9 stack adds1 comment