Like a Hole in the Head Book

The same marinade of lonely-girl tough-talk that flavored Barbara Seranella's Edgar Award-nominated first novel, No Human Involved, enriches playwright Jen Banbury's wonderfully raucous and raunchy debut, Like a Hole in the Head. Banbury's mystery is also set in a Los Angeles made memorable by fresh insights. "I took Venice Boulevard," says Jill, who works in a used bookstore. "Past all the two-story apartment buildings where old women laid out their cast-off clothes like a distress signal. They would sit around in beach chairs waiting to sell wrinkled muumuus for two bucks a pop. Past the strip malls with the five dollar manicure places. Past Donut Heaven, Donut Time, Winchell's Donuts, Time for Donuts, I Love Donuts, Falafel and Donuts, Jimmy's Donuts, and Dough-nutty. Past the Hare Krishna temple. I had gone there once for a free vegetarian meal. They asked me to leave before serving me. You have to chant before you can eat and I kept saying 'Hairy Hitler' instead of Hare Krishna. The girl praying next to me blew the whistle. I was hungry and I shouldn't have been such a wiseass. I've heard the food is pretty good." There's also a plot, of sorts: a rare first edition of a Jack London work drops Jill into a bizarre and dangerous substrata of desperate dwarfs, failed actors, and lethal antiquarian book dealers.Read More