With the rat-a-tat-tat declarative sentences of a modern Dashiell Hammett, debut novelist Patrick Hoffman jumps into the crowded pool of hard-core noir and makes a big splash. The White Van makes street-by-street turns through San Francisco's alleys and seedy neighborhoods. Hoffman, a private investigator for nine years, knows the Bay Area's crooks, weirdos and police ("a sea of pink skin and broken capillaries").
Emily is a wasted hustler cruising the streets of the Tenderloin district in search of drugs or a john to bankroll them. Elias is a bent, alcoholic cop about to lose his house in foreclosure. A shady broker in Chinese bootleg cigarettes, Benya fails to make good on a loan from the Russian mafia and finds himself indentured to the city's local pakhan, Sophia. She cooks up a scheme in which Benya will pick up a young druggie woman, ply her with meds ("crack and oxycodone to lure her... scopolamine, Estazolam, and amobarbital to break her will"), and then lead her into a bank branch to steal an interbank-transfer satchel with almost a million in cash. But Emily shakes her buzz long enough to hop on a bus with the money instead of the Russians' white getaway van. Elias catches the dispatch call and goes rogue, trying to find Emily and the money to solve his own problems. Hunted by both sides of the law, Emily turns to her only friend, Jules, a stripper who arrives "like an R&B singer in rehab... a pink warm up suit... big hair and bright nails."
The White Van is a story without heroes, but Jules is close as we get. Like Emily, she's a lifelong hustler. When her friend's back is to the wall, she at least shows up to help--even if a million in cash motivates her more than friendship. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.