I first encountered Harley Jane Kozak at a recent book event where we were both featured authors. As former Soap-actresses-turned-novelists we decided we must have been separated at birth. Further, we both had a thing for Mary Shelley. But while I wrote a historical play on ”Frankenstein’s” author, Harley created a modern-day heroine named Wolstonecraft Shelley. How could I resist? I had to read at least one of her books!
Los Angeles is always problematic for writers. So sprawling and multi-themed as to appear if not amorphous, at least Protean: one minute a collection of exquisitely manicured gardens providing lush embraces to Spanish mansions, the next a depressing array of billboards dwarfing cracker box housse baked to a crisp in relentless sunshine.
Harley tackles this conundrum by creating a world-within-a-world outlandish enough to be unique and grounded enough to be recognizable. “Wollie” Shelley is trying to run a greeting-card business, taking part in a reality-TV-show about dating, keeping a weather-eye on an institutionalized brother, all while thrashing her way through sleuthing, investigating a dead body and avoiding the Mob.
With her gangly, kind-hearted “Wollie” she’s pressing toward mastery of a whole new genre of her own creating: literary heroine-turned-gumshoe. I read book one for the sake of camaraderie and curiosity. But now I’m in it for the duration. I’ve put book two in the queue.
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