Nick Kolakowski is a journalist who has produced numerous short stories and novels in several genres, including horror, science fiction, and crime fiction. In the latter, he’s written two series, one featuring a bounty hunter and the other a pair of grifters running from the law and the mob while falling in love.

With his new novel, Where the Bones Lie, he’s turned his hand to the hardboiled detective story. If there’s any doubt where we’re headed, Kolakowski makes it abundantly clear by naming his hero Dash Fuller. Perhaps he should’ve gone all in and called him Dash Chandler.

Initially, it seems as if he’s going to give the book a gonzo spin, similar to what Thomas Pynchon did when he went slumming with Inherent Vice a decade ago. An extended opening serves as a prologue, setting up the psychic torment afflicting Dash and laying out what led him to give up his job as a fixer to Hollywood’s beautiful people and become a stand-up comedian. As the tale begins, it’s clear this new career isn’t working out too well, mostly because Dash isn’t funny.

This section unfolds in Ellroy-like hipster language, which can get tiresome at novel length. Fortunately, Kolakowski soon switches to a more traditional style once Dash is recruited by his old boss, Manny, to find a hot, young, and troublesome movie star and his gorgeous, equally troublesome co-star.

Dash has little experience as an unlicensed P.I. and no idea how to go about locating the missing duo. His desperate and improbable solution is to ask if anyone in his comedy-show audience knows where they might be. Unbelievably, someone does come up with a lead that bears fruit, but it’s the bitter kind. Coincidences like this mar the beginning of the book a bit but thankfully fade as the story develops.

Dash locates the missing brats at the house in which a deeply traumatic event — the one that drove him from the fixer business — occurred two years prior. We learn bit-by-bit the details of the incident, which eventually dovetails nicely with the main storyline.

That primary narrative is also kicked off by a member of Dash’s audience. Madeline, an unusual and slightly off-center woman (she wears a peacoat in L.A.’s heat and drives a classic Mustang), wants Dash to investigate the disappearance and apparent murder of her father, a shadowy figure with possible mob ties. His skeletonized body (sans teeth) and wallet have been found after a couple decades in a barrel that’s been exposed in a lakebed drying up due to climate change.

Experienced mystery fans will quickly smoke out this creaky plot device, one that I first encountered as a teenager in the Sherlock Holmes volume The Valley of Fear, when it wasn’t so creaky and still had the ability to surprise. But as in life, it is the journey that matters, and Kolakowski provides Dash and Madeline with an exciting and eventful one.

It’s an epic road trip reminiscent of a James Crumley novel, minus the prodigious amounts of substance use. Our heroes head north out of Los Angeles to the fictional town of San Douglas. There, they meet crooked cops, thugs, and a mysterious wine merchant who seems to own most of the valley. There is betrayal, revenge, and redemption, and the bodies pile up like in any good hardboiled detective novel.

And make no mistake, this is a good one.

Kolakowski mixes these standard ingredients into a satisfying blend that keeps the reader turning the pages. Mostly, this is due to the engaging lead characters, the pacing, and some snappy dialogue. Adding to the atmosphere are frequent references to the wildfires that threaten much of Southern California (and that play a major role in the story’s climax). Certainly, Kolakowski didn’t have time to revise the book in the two months prior to its publication to incorporate horrendous recent events, but it sure is timely.

Where the Bones Lie ends with an indication that there may be further adventures for Dash Fuller. I certainly hope so.

Terry Zobeck is a retired federal substance-use researcher and policy analyst. He is the author of A Trawl among the Shelves: Lawrence Block Bibliography, 1958-2020.