MT Review: Follow Her Home [Hardcover]

I've finished "Follow Her Home" by Steph Cha.

Product Description

A stunning, edgy debut introducing Juniper Song, an amateur sleuth taking on the darkness in the veins of L.A. with razor-sharp wit and a breaking heart.Juniper Song knows secrets – how to keep them and how to search them out. As a girl, noir fiction was her favorite escape, and Philip Marlowe has always been her literary idol. So when her friend Luke asks her to investigate a possible affair between his father and a young employee, Juniper (or "Song" as her friends call her) finds an opportunity to play detective. Driving through L.A.'s side streets, following leads, tailing suspects - it all appeals to Song's romantic ideal of the noir hero. But when she's knocked out while investigating a mysterious car and finds a body in her own trunk, Song lurches back to the real L.A., becoming embroiled in a crime that goes far beyond role play. What's more, this isn't the first time Song has stuck her nose in other people's business. As she fights to discover the truth about her friend's family, Song reveals one of her own deeply hidden secrets, something dark and damaging, urging her to see the current mystery through, to rectify the mistakes of her past life.

About the Author

STEPH CHA is a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School. She lives in her native city of Los Angeles, California. This is her first novel.

Product Details
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Minotaur Books (April 16, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1250009626
ISBN-13: 978-1250009623

My Review:

Juniper Song is an amateur detective and her idols are Raymond Chandler and Philip Marlowe.  When a friend Lucas Cook asks her to investigate his father because he believes he is having an affair with a very young Korean girl Lori.  As she starts investigating she is knocked out, finds a corpse in the trunk of her car and starts receiving death threats.

Then she meets a real detective who was hired by his sister to suspects her husband is having an affair with Lori.  She also learns the dead man in her trunk had a thing with Lori too.

Also there is a subplot that involves Juniper's younger sister Iris who has become involved with her teacher with an obsession with young Asian girls.

This was an interesting read with a protagonist that went into her investigation with enthusiasm, fearlessness and quite confident that she can handle any situation.

3/5

Thanks St. Martin's Press for sending me this book to review, greatly appreciated!