Standalone by Christopher Chambers plunges you into the dark underbelly of Washington D.C. with ex-addict turned PI, Dickie Cornish. Expect a twisted mystery, flawed characters, and gritty realism that doesn't shy away from the harshness of city life. The book excels in atmosphere and Dickie's complex portrayal, but the pacing can be slow and the ending might not please everyone. If you crave hardboiled crime with a dash of social commentary, Standalone delivers, but manage your expectations and prepare for a wild ride.

Take a dash of George Pelecanos’s riff on life on the slick and harsh streets of Southeast Washington DC, crank in a shot of James Ellroy’s staccato narratives, pass that mix into the hands of Dickie Cornish, the homeless wannabe private eye, and you get a more realistically sharp snapshot of life in DC than is typically reflected in our imagination or on national media. Cornish finds himself bullied, harassed, pressured and threatened to begin the drudge-like effort of finding out who is kidnapping and murdering children of one of the weakest politically and economically segments of society-the multiethnic urban poor. To add to the pressure the recently appointed DC Police Chief grants Dickie a “provisional private investigator license ” to help her solve this problem and try to chip away at some of the more nasty elements of local criminal activity where systemic racism, politics and degradation are near natural attributes.
Christopher Chambers, in this second Dickie Cornish story, very effectively churns the chaos of crime, racism, corruption and poverty among the subsistence less members of Southeast Washington into an intense and often disheartening narrative of life, death and getting along at the lower edges of America’s central political maelstrom- Washington DC..

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I received this book as part of LibraryThing’s early reviewer program.

I enjoyed Standalone, by Christopher Chambers. the language and the characters all seemed authentic to me. I particularly liked the dynamic between Dickie and "Gunny" and the differences in their personalities. Good twists and turns too. ( )

I rate this book 3.5 stars rounded down. Portions of the book are written in street jargon and are very hard to understand. Two quotes:
Dickie Cornish in custody "Didn't all these smiling bigshots tells Trump's tonton macoutes never be caging folks like sick animals again? Well, this ain't no heat mirage, and I get a better look when baldie yanks me to my feet with the help of a jarhead-looking whiteboy jake."
Dickie with Al Mayadeen:
"Boston, he's suddenly folding back into the shadows like a nappy-headed Nosferatu peeping a crucifix when Al-Mayadeen hips you to two ofays in an open top, jeep."
This is book 2 in the Dickie Cornish series. There are refences to events in book 1 when Dickie took down a bunch of bad guys. Because of his reputation from that episode, he is asked by Al Mayadeen to find his missing daughter, at gunpoint. But then Al Mayadeen commits suicide.
Dickie is then recruited by the Washington, D.C. police commissioner to do the same. He is given a temporary private investigator license by the commissioner. Dickie is a street denizen and ex addict. This temporary license is a major gift for him. Dickie uncovers high level corruption and almost gets killed. He does solve the case.
One warning: There is a fair amount of profanity in this book.
Thanks to Three Rooms Press for sending me this book through LibraryThing.
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This was tough. I almost stopped reading this book at the start of it, as it was difficult for me to understand. But I am not a quitter and do enjoy a mystery. Unfortunately with all that was going on, it still didn’t do it for me. Dickie Cornish, an unlicensed PI and street person is forced to look for a missing girl. What he finds is corruption on all levels. Confusing for me but I finished the book. It wasn’t for me. Sorry. ( )