The writing is very smooth but the writer spent too much time to paint the veiled several key characters with very very long paragraphs, sometimes a whole page only got about 1-1/10 long paragraphs which were usually very tiresome to focus and read. The prose style writing may be very good but also kills the pace to an almost dragging, snailingly crawled monologue styled narration, just like the late man who rode a bus and look outside the window, the smoky glass made everything distant and vague and made the scenary going back and disappeared. A mystery should not be written like a some kind memorial stuff lingering in yesterday. Like a chess game, both players got to meet the time limits, reading a novel or mystery is the same thing, you just can't have too much time wasted in blabbing and making the reader waiting too long and too much

Girard has an ability I usually don't find in this genre, to give detail of settings and people to make you feel you are there along side them. Rather than the typical supreficial, get to the story nature of mysteries, it goes several levels deeper. The people become very real and you care about them as much as you care about whodunnit. The people are not some stereotype. The weaving of contrasts and similarities between the three main characters puts us on a level with them, we've all been there in some way. What starts out as bleak lives, mistakes are made, hope is lost, leaves the reader feeling there is a future. I can't wait for his new novel to come out.

"The Late Man" is an elegiac, beautifully written novel whose story happens to fit the constraints of genre. But to say that it is not strictly speaking a "genre novel" is meant as praise; this is a beautiful book that sneaks up on you and lingers with you long after you have turned the last page. I recommend this book to all "genre" lovers- be they crime novels, detective novels, or murder mysteries- who want a little more weight, a little more feeling with their entertainments. "The Late Man" makes me hope that this was not a one shot from Mister Girard; that many more novels of this caliber will issue forth from him.

In Los Angeles Celeste Munro, who makes her living as a high priced sexual partner and part time thief, decides it was time to leave California and maintain a low profile. And in Wichita, Kansas, a police detective on temporary leave is asked to see if he can track her down. Out of this material James Girard builds a complex and chilling suspense story. One full of haunting characters whose interactions reflect the confused and often heartless state of the human mind.

Floyd Lassiter is a police detective who is becoming increasingly subject to temporal lobe seizures. Because of a recent episode involving an assistant district attorney, he has been temporarily relieved of duty. While he has kept his problem a secret, Floyd knows that it is only a matter of time before he will no longer be able to operate as a police officer, no longer be able to do what he loves. Thus, he is relieved when Loomis, his chief, calls him in to talk about Celeste. She is believed to have returned to the Wichita area and the police have been asked to help with the case. With no on duty investigator available, Lassiter is recruited for the task.

Lassiter's investigation uncovers layer after layer of subterfuge. Thin clues lead him back though records and memories to a young prostitute, one who changes identities as needed. But Celeste and Lassiter are not the only actors in this drama. Jes Wellington, a professional writer, Zach Vincent, a computer consultant, and Jerry Majors, Floyd's partner all play major parts in this tale along with many others. Even as bits of the truth are gradually surface, other mysteries are uncovered. Gradually the book evolves from pure detection to thriller.

This is a noir tale, where all of the characters are exposed to events that will either change or destroy them. Lassiter's worst enemy is his own mind. His mental state unravels and fragments as the story progresses. Girard reflects this not just in his portrayal of the detective, but in the very style of the novel itself. The book is a continuous flow of points of view, as narration switches from one character to another, almost at random. The author is capable of gemlike moments of narrative and characterization, but never allows a sense of continuity to develop. As such, the reader often feels imprisoned in Lassiter's mental state - suffering from the same syndrome.

To be honest, I found this wearing. As the book moves along, it becomes clear that there is no central character. This device kept me from becoming as involved as I would like to have been, and left me trying to juggle too many facts and subplots. If one does not have the time and energy to remain focused on the story it is very easy to lose the thread from reading to reading. This is a matter of personal taste and won't bother everyone equally. Girard deserves credit for writing a story in exactly the style I like least and still managing to keep my attention as well as he did. While I found it slow going, others will enjoy the many polished facets of the telling.<