Secret Identity by Alex Segura

Having multiple types of mystery I love means getting into the differences in pacing. Whereas Cozy Mysteries are sweet, slice-of-life style with an added-on murder, noir is a whole other beast and this story knows exactly how to drop its audience into the setting with a full, noirish atmosphere.

Segura clearly knows the comics industry incredibly intimately, which gives great color to the 1970s New York setting. My own vague knowledge of that period is confirmed by the mentions of legends like Ditko and Kirby and of course Stan Lee, as well as the DC machine, helping me contextualize the world we find Carmen inhabiting.

I did figure out the killer basically as soon as we met them, however. It wasn’t very difficult, though it didn’t ruin my enjoyment. For me, this was more about the setting and Carmen’s struggles in the ownership/writing of her character rather than about a mystery, which is fine for this particular story. From a male author, the queer female protagonist was written with relative nuance. I did enjoy the epilogue ending that reckons with the reality of “that time” in comics versus now.

Interior Chinatown Charles Yu

Satire may not be sustainable for me in the long-form. Like Hollow Kingdom this has a very strong voice, but it was difficult for me to get into the actual story in play at first.

Part of this might have been the primary usage of the second person, which is the bane of my existence in anything longer than 2,000 words. Given that the novel is told in screenplay form, I found it an odd choice. Screenplays are not in the second person. I understand the choice to put the reader in the position of having the dreams and hopes that Willis does, using “Generic Asian Man” and “Kung Fu Guy” as aspirational distance, but narratively I’m not sure it did much legwork.

The satire is poignant though if a little on the nose at times. There are good monologues toward the end that highlight plenty of familiar experiences for me as an Asian American and there are some really good points to be made when it comes to the roles all of us on the margins are relegated to — like how even though the leads are Black and White, the Black man is only allowed to be one type of person. The intriguing side character is an ethnically ambiguous woman and while that’s a meaty role, she’s stuck there forever. We stamp roles on the people around us and leave them to wither in their limitations.

The challenge, I suppose, is to do better.