I was tired. Tired of thinking about death. I remembered something Kafka said, that the meaning of life is only that it stops. I wanted to punch Kafka in the face. But he’s dead too.

James Scott Bell’s Mike Romeo books are pleasant, fairly light action mysteries in the hard-boiled genre. James Scott Bell, a top-level Christian novelist, knows his business. His main character here is a former cage fighter who now works as an investigator for a wise old Jewish attorney in Los Angeles. Mike is a great reader, always quoting the classics.

In Romeo’s Fire, they have a new client, a homeless boy who killed another homeless man with a knife. He claims self-defense – it’s the use of a knife in California that got him in trouble. Mike’s boss thinks he can plead down to manslaughter and get the kid off with no jail time. They get him remanded to a group home, from which he promptly disappears. Now it’s Mike’s job to find their client.

One amusing element in this story was that after Mike gets arrested (of course he gets arrested. Doesn’t every private eye get arrested in every private eye novel?), he solves the problem the old-fashioned way, by just bulling through a police guard. He makes it work too.

Also notable is the realistic depiction of today’s Los Angeles, especially its homeless problem and impotent police protection. There are also Christian themes, which author Bell renders more palatable through making Mike a seeking agnostic.

The Mike Romeo mysteries are always fun. I recommend Romeo’s Fire, and James Scott Bell is a fine storyteller.