Bayou City Burning is the first in a series of father/daughter detective stories, the Harry and Dizzy Lark Books by D.B. Borton. It’s set in Houston with an authentic sense of place complete with the stench of Texas oil refineries, arrow-straight stretches of highway, and crooked politics. As a child of the sixties, I appreciated the timeframe as well—complete with JFK’s promise to put a man on the moon. D.B. Borton writes fictional themes based on actual events and people. The story is what I’d expect from old TV series during the 1960s.
Harry Lark is a bit of a ne’er do well P.I. He’s divorced and paying for his son’s braces, so he’s thrilled when a ritzy out-of-towner arrives in his office with what appears to be an easy job. But the client later gets shot one night in Harry’s office.
Harry’s twelve-year-old daughter Dizzy (short for Desdemona) is a delight, spunky and too intelligent for her own good. She starts her own business, a lost-and-found, in the family garage along with her two best friends, Mel and B.D. A Nancy Drew fan, Dizzy wants to be a P.I. just like her dad. Her mother is a professor.
This is a fun, intriguing mystery with P.I. lingo like that used in Hawaii Five-0 and 77 Sunset Strip. Dizzy used the same lingo to comic effect. The father and daughter have a unique, touching relationship. The book is worth reading for that alone.
Author
maryannmiller
3 years ago
This is the first of a new series by this author, and I love the idea of a father/daughter team of investigators – especially when the daughter is so young.
By the way, I think Dizzy upstaged Harry most of the time, but that’s generally true with a very smart, precocious 12-year old. I did enjoy the team of sleuths that Dizzy pulled together for the Lost and Found business. All of the girls were distinct as characters and fun to meet in the pages of Bayou City Burning.
This book felt like a mix of a young adult caper-type mystery, similar to plots in Nancy Drew books, and elements of the Raymond Chandler noir PI mysteries. As a fan of both, it was a real pleasure to see those elements in this book.
The connection between what Dizzy and her friends were doing – trying to find information about the man who was supposedly killed in a horrible train wreck – and how that tied into what Harry was doing took a little time to develop. But the time was well spent, as the characters came alive and the story took on more depth.
A reader might question some of the things that Harry shares with his daughter, especially letting her handle guns and taking her to a shooting range. I did at first, but then I remembered that that things were different in 1961. At that time, it was more common for things like that to happen, especially with people in law enforcement, as well as farmers & ranchers. Most of those folks wanted to teach their children how to safely handle a weapon.
One of the things I especially liked about the story was the fact that Dizzy and her father had equal roles in solving the overall mystery and bringing the cases to a close.
If you’re a fan of a good mystery with great characters and a lot of humor, this is the book for you.
Author
dianemjohnson
3 years ago
This is a gem of a book, and I highly recommend it. It’s the summer of 1961 in Houston, and private detective Harry Lark is hired to look into a pair of visitors who have an interest in building a Space Center there. Then a man ends up dead, and Harry’s focus changes.
Meanwhile, his 12 year old daughter Dizzy gets a case of her own. Dizzy and her friends are aspiring Nancy Drews, and when a little girl in the neighborhood comes to them asking to prove that her daddy didn’t die in a recent train wreck, they learn the the highly improbable belief is actually possible.
The two cases cross paths, and father and daughter team up to solve each other’s mysteries in a noir story that lives in the history of Houston during 1961.
I thoroughly enjoyed the characters of Dizzy and Harry. Their father daughter relationship is charming in a hard boiled detective story kind of way. I’m somewhat reminded of the relationship in the movie Paper Moon, and I’m not sure why.
And speaking of movies, I think this has a great potential to be considered for one. There is a diverse supporting cast, as the civil rights movement factors into the plot, and the equally diverse culture of Houston is well portrayed. Weird suggestion– if the author can get the attention of some Texas born actor like, say “Jensen Ackles,” I could totally picture him in the role of Harry. I know, that’s a silly idea… but what if… I hear he’s free in about a year…
My only criticism is that, as smart as Dizzy is, I sometimes felt that her first person narrative sounded too adult for her character. But that’s a minor complaint that I can forgive.
Bayou City Burning is the first in a series of father/daughter detective stories, the Harry and Dizzy Lark Books by D.B. Borton. It’s set in Houston with an authentic sense of place complete with the stench of Texas oil refineries, arrow-straight stretches of highway, and crooked politics. As a child of the sixties, I appreciated the timeframe as well—complete with JFK’s promise to put a man on the moon. D.B. Borton writes fictional themes based on actual events and people. The story is what I’d expect from old TV series during the 1960s.
Harry Lark is a bit of a ne’er do well P.I. He’s divorced and paying for his son’s braces, so he’s thrilled when a ritzy out-of-towner arrives in his office with what appears to be an easy job. But the client later gets shot one night in Harry’s office.
Harry’s twelve-year-old daughter Dizzy (short for Desdemona) is a delight, spunky and too intelligent for her own good. She starts her own business, a lost-and-found, in the family garage along with her two best friends, Mel and B.D. A Nancy Drew fan, Dizzy wants to be a P.I. just like her dad. Her mother is a professor.
This is a fun, intriguing mystery with P.I. lingo like that used in Hawaii Five-0 and 77 Sunset Strip. Dizzy used the same lingo to comic effect. The father and daughter have a unique, touching relationship. The book is worth reading for that alone.
This is the first of a new series by this author, and I love the idea of a father/daughter team of investigators – especially when the daughter is so young.
By the way, I think Dizzy upstaged Harry most of the time, but that’s generally true with a very smart, precocious 12-year old. I did enjoy the team of sleuths that Dizzy pulled together for the Lost and Found business. All of the girls were distinct as characters and fun to meet in the pages of Bayou City Burning.
This book felt like a mix of a young adult caper-type mystery, similar to plots in Nancy Drew books, and elements of the Raymond Chandler noir PI mysteries. As a fan of both, it was a real pleasure to see those elements in this book.
The connection between what Dizzy and her friends were doing – trying to find information about the man who was supposedly killed in a horrible train wreck – and how that tied into what Harry was doing took a little time to develop. But the time was well spent, as the characters came alive and the story took on more depth.
A reader might question some of the things that Harry shares with his daughter, especially letting her handle guns and taking her to a shooting range. I did at first, but then I remembered that that things were different in 1961. At that time, it was more common for things like that to happen, especially with people in law enforcement, as well as farmers & ranchers. Most of those folks wanted to teach their children how to safely handle a weapon.
One of the things I especially liked about the story was the fact that Dizzy and her father had equal roles in solving the overall mystery and bringing the cases to a close.
If you’re a fan of a good mystery with great characters and a lot of humor, this is the book for you.
This is a gem of a book, and I highly recommend it. It’s the summer of 1961 in Houston, and private detective Harry Lark is hired to look into a pair of visitors who have an interest in building a Space Center there. Then a man ends up dead, and Harry’s focus changes.
Meanwhile, his 12 year old daughter Dizzy gets a case of her own. Dizzy and her friends are aspiring Nancy Drews, and when a little girl in the neighborhood comes to them asking to prove that her daddy didn’t die in a recent train wreck, they learn the the highly improbable belief is actually possible.
The two cases cross paths, and father and daughter team up to solve each other’s mysteries in a noir story that lives in the history of Houston during 1961.
I thoroughly enjoyed the characters of Dizzy and Harry. Their father daughter relationship is charming in a hard boiled detective story kind of way. I’m somewhat reminded of the relationship in the movie Paper Moon, and I’m not sure why.
And speaking of movies, I think this has a great potential to be considered for one. There is a diverse supporting cast, as the civil rights movement factors into the plot, and the equally diverse culture of Houston is well portrayed. Weird suggestion– if the author can get the attention of some Texas born actor like, say “Jensen Ackles,” I could totally picture him in the role of Harry. I know, that’s a silly idea… but what if… I hear he’s free in about a year…
My only criticism is that, as smart as Dizzy is, I sometimes felt that her first person narrative sounded too adult for her character. But that’s a minor complaint that I can forgive.