The Wheel of Doll

The eponymous and hapless detective Happy Doll returns with a new philosophy and a new case in this second installment of the series.

Although badly scarred and down to his last kidney after the previous caper, Happy Doll is back in business. When a beguiling young woman turns up at his door, it's Doll's past that comes knocking. Mary DeAngelo is searching for her estranged mother, Ines Candle--a singular and troubled woman Doll once loved. The last he'd seen her she'd been near-death: arms slit like envelopes. Although she survived the episode, she vanished shortly thereafter. Now, years later, Mary claims Ines is alive and has recently made contact--messaging her on Facebook and calling her from a burner phone--only to disappear once again. Although his psychoanalyst would discourage it, Doll takes the case, desperate to see Ines again. But as the investigation deepens, there are questions he can't shake. What's led the flighty Ines to reappear? Is Mary only relaying half the truth? And who is Mary's strange and mysterious husband?

In this wholly original follow-up to A MAN NAMED DOLL, Happy travels through L.A., Washington, Oregon and back again--a journey that gets wilder and woolier with each turn. An irreverent and inventive mystery, THE WHEEL OF DOLL is not to be missed.

Praise for A Man Named Doll:

"I loved this book - it's quirky, edgy, charming, funny and serious, all in one. Very highly recommended."--Lee Child, #1 bestselling author of Blue Moon

"While the macabre seriousness of the crimes and the narrator's good-nature and sardonic humour might seem to be at odds, Ames makes it work through assured plotting, superb local colour, and excellent prose."--Publishers Weekly

"Fun and propulsive. Happy Doll is a tremendously likable main character, and the Los Angeles he inhabits is vibrantly alive in every detail. I hope Jonathan Ames has many more adventures planned for the newest P.I. in town."--Lou Berney, author of the New York Times-bestselling November Road

"If Elliott Gould's Philip Marlowe landed in the middle of Uncut Gems, you'd have something like Jonathan Ames's A MAN NAMED DOLL, which expertly mines the dark humour, mordant wit and dreamy fatalism of great LA noir. And at its centre is a detective with a battered heart and bruised conscience. I'd follow him, and his dog George, anywhere." Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning author of Dare Me