Thirteen Question Method
Description
In Thirteen Question Method, a man hides out in a Hollywood apartment from a past he doesn't want to remember and a present he is desperate to avoid. The summer sky is thick with ash, and across the courtyard, his neighbor won't stop screaming. When she asks for help in an inheritance dispute with her estranged stepmother, he is drawn into a web of fear and manipulation, until he begins to lose sight of what is real. Echoing the work of Dorothy B. Hughes and James M. Cain, David Goodis and Albert Camus, Thirteen Question Method is a churning psychological thriller, set against the backdrop of contemporary Los Angeles. In a novel inspired by classic noir, David L. Ulin excavates the depths of a disintegrating soul.
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About the Author
Reviews
"...brilliantly channels the most unsettling aspects of classic noir... Ulin is a master of atmosphere, sucking readers into a psychedelic vortex of dread and regret and then gradually digging them out of it. This Lynchian nightmare isn't easy to forget." - Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW
"...taking cues from classic noir and devil-at-the-crossroad blues, the novel is one long blast of existential despair ... the ill wind whipping through these pages leaves its mark." - Kirkus Reviews
"In THIRTEEN QUESTION METHOD, David L. Ulin brings out the chiaroscuro of Los Angeles, the brightness of its glamour contrasted with the deep shadows of its sordidness. You can feel the heat rise from the sidewalks as it does from this book, until the moment everything explodes... No one knows Los Angeles, or noir, quite like he does." - Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer
"Spare, brutal, and laced with the dark, dizzying smoke of California wildfire, THIRTEEN QUESTION METHOD is a hot shot of Los Angeles noir from one of our city's finest writers." - Steph Cha, author of Your House Will Pay
"I haven't read a book as incendiary, relentless, and downright sinister as THIRTEEN QUESTION METHOD. With this novel, David L. Ulin joins the ranks of crime fiction heavyweights like Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, and Patricia Highsmith... A lesson in how to write noir and all the deliciously disturbing things that come with it." - Alex Espinoza, author of Still Water Saints and Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime
"A masterclass in noir that both honors and elevates the genre... Ulin's novel is sharp, nasty, and unsettling in all the best ways." - Ivy Pochoda, author of Sing Her Down, These Women, Wonder Vall and Visitation Street
"Go ahead and rewrite the canon and put Ulin's first crime novel on the top of the list - this is fast, sexy, weird, and completely unhinged. You'll read it quickly and then you'll read it again, just to make sure you didn't miss a single word. An instant classic." - Tod Goldberg, New York Times bestselling author of The Low Desert and the Gangsterland trilogy
"This is either Josef K in a Raymond Chandler plot, or Boethius caught like Vincent Price in the most Los Angeles story there is. Either way, this one grabs you by the face and drags you through the forest dark, which turns out to be more familiar than you want." - Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Only Good Indians
"A smart shot of a crime novel - so intelligent, so creepy, so noir. The anxieties of every character (including the great city of Los Angeles) burn off the pages in this ode to the worst of us." - NYT and WSJ bestselling novelist Rachel Howzell Hall
