In Glendall C. Jackson III’s NAKED CAME THE DETECTIVE a high-end escort vows to solve the murder of a lucrative client, long rumored to be the driving force behind a series of Ponzi schemes. It’s an intriguing premise for a mystery. But the story falls apart due to an awkward narrative structure, jumbled timelines, and confusing points of view. This book is a “story within a story,” a memoir published by a fictitious journalist named “Chris”¬— one of the anonymous call girl’s devoted clients. The journalist published the memoir as a tribute to the escort whose “hourglass figure . . . and alluring natural breasts” still captivate him months after she’s disappeared and quit the profession. “Chris” inserts multiple notes throughout the escort’s recollections to clarify his own thoughts on his former lover-for-hire. However, these inserts slow the narrative and muddle its timelines. The protagonist engages in no real sleuthing despite her obsession with her murdered client’s fate. The murder’s mystery is solved through happenstance and a series of improbable coincidences and “reveals” that seem contrived and expositional.
As the clients offer up the clues that unlock the murder mystery, they relate the plot in the passive voice. The result is a story told largely through hearsay, lacking conflict and dramatic tension. The strongest and most entertaining element in the book is the protagonist’s character. She comes across as sassy, engaging and confident and highly believable as a straight-shooting businesswoman who studied “graduate econometrics” at Brown then dupes her high-profile clients into believing she has a PhD. Her elaborate scheme to catch the killer is one of the book’s high points. Other characters, though a bit tropey, are well fleshed out with good detail and solid description. Murder victim Ben is cheekily described as a patrician fifty-something with “gently graying hair, piercing cerulean eyes,” who always brings “a bottle of Pol Roger Champagne and a box of Belgian chocolates” to his trysts.
The protagonist and her best friends, fellow sex workers Wendy and Valerie, are described as the “Charlie’s Angels” of the sex trade (due to their different hair colors) who relish sipping “Aperol Spritzes . . . with “Margherita flatbread alongside Italian salads adorned with olives and pepperoncini peppers.”
The detailed sexcapades seem a bit overblown, but they are tastefully presented. Overall, the book is well-written in a chatty and direct style. There are a few typos, grammar mistakes and errors in tenses.
The book’s title is a play on a notorious bestseller from the late sixties, Naked Came the Stranger. The book was written under a pen name by a group of journalists who wanted to write an intentional piece of literary trash and make it a hit.
Despite a strong protagonist and loads of kinky sex scenes, the early sizzle in NAKED CAME THE DETECTIVE fizzles due to author Glendall C. Jackson III’s contrived plot and confusing structure.
~Robin L Harvey for IndieReader