9781948596053
Molotov Editions, 2025
255 pp
paperback
I may not have been present here for a while, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been reading. On the contrary, sitting on one end of desk there is a stackus giganticus of books I've finished in the last few weeks waiting for me to share my thoughts about them. On the top is this one, The Lizard by Domenic Stansberry, whose writing talents have earned him the North America Hammett Prize for Literary Excellence in Crime Fiction (2017), a nomination for the Edgar in 1999 which was followed by a win in 2005 for The Confession, which was evidently the target of some controversy. It seems, according to the author's website, that a "dissenting judge ... broke with tradition to condemn the selection of this 'amoral' novel for Best Paperback Original." Stansberry has also been nominated for the Shamus Award as well as the Barry Award, so bottom line: his work is no stranger to the crime fiction-writing/reading world.
The Lizard is no ordinary crime story, nor is it anywhere close to average or run of the mill, which is so refreshing for modern crime novels. The narrator of this story goes by S. E. Reynolds, which is not his real name but rather one he uses when "working as a ghost." He'd started his career as a reporter, first covering crime, but after a series of setbacks ended up "ghosting a weekly column for a state representative." This job, evidently, was something he could do well, moving on to work for "celebrities, politicians, war heroes, people with stories to tell, ambitions, visions to share." He had hoped to score the job of ghostwriting a memoir for a particular gubernatorial candidate, but, as he notes, the candidate had "suddenly demurred." Now his literary agent offers him a project "that he thought he might be good for," one where he'd be on familiar ground. It seems that an old friend and fellow investigative journalist, Max Seeghurs, is working on a book about the Sundial House in Santa Fe, a sort of shady resort once frequented by the rich, as well as the occasional politician, founded by a philanthropist with a vision whose death was the end of Sundial's popularity among the beautiful people. Max's book is "in trouble," and the agent is worried about seeing the project through. Getting a copy of the manuscript is not in the cards; Max wants to meet in person. Reynolds has his own reasons for getting together with Max, so off to New York he goes, but things go horribly bad, leading Reynolds into more than one dangerous situation and to the place where the book opens -- having been involved in some "shootings," wandering about in the desert "in cave country," feeling "feverish and on the brink of hallucination" and eventually landing in a coastal town where he not only feels that he can't go home, but also paranoid that he's being watched.
The story chases those events that have pinned him down in the midst of a conspiracy as he tries to get to the truth behind what is happening to and all around him, while at the same time it has Reynolds engaging in his own measure of self examination, focusing in on past relationships and the ramifications of decisions he's made. As the back cover blurb notes, Reynolds finds himself "trapped," and there may be no escape.
The Lizard is not a book for those who are looking for formulaic crime with all the standard elements, nor is it a book for readers looking for a quick, light read that will make you smile and move right on to the next book. No way. Stansberry writes with depth and intensity, and his prose in some places moves into the realm of the hallucinatory and the metaphorical, with the effect of leaving the reader looking beyond this world deep into another more broken one. It is dark, bleak and has a strong noir vibe, in which we follow a man straight into his own personal sort of hell, and I loved every second of it.
My thanks to the author both for the ask and for my copy of this book. I won't forget this story for a long, long time.
