A Man Named Doll by Jonathan Ames

Mulholland Books, 224 pages, $26

“A Man Named Doll” has a 50s B-movie feel to it, but the story comes equipped with cellphones. The graphic story has the protagonist, the unfortunately named Happy Doll (“Hank” for short), receive his fair share of injuries, as well as your share and my share. It’s set in Los Angeles. This Los Angeles is not yet threatened by wildfires, mud/rock slides, or drought. But there is a heavy smog layer sitting atop it. 

Hank was an MP and an LAPD officer before he got out of the biz. He is now a private investigator with low to middling success. He lives in Topanga Canyon with his canine good boy George. He was blasted apart by love, so it is hard for him to accept the approaches by Monica, a waitress in his favorite diner. He keeps regular appointments with an analyst to discuss his many deficiencies. 

Suddenly Hank’s life turns sour. Unfortunately, the events that occur are not ones he can reveal to his analyst. They are brought about by a big case of the stupids. Time after time, Hank makes the absolute wrong decision, and I can’t figure out why. On the face of it, Hank is befuddled by pain medication (and other drugs) and ceases to be able to make appropriate (e.g., sane) choices. At an underlying level, perhaps there's an issue with authority or a death wish. The result is a series of Three Stooges mayhem, only it isn’t funny. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

It begins when Hank saves one of the massage women at the “spa” where he works part-time from a violent customer and is injured in the process, thus necessitating the drugs. Also, one of Hank’s long-time acquaintances has asked him for a kidney. Lou was a cop with Hank at the LAPD and saved his life once a long time ago. Hank, who has a serious fondness for all his body parts, has to think hard about it. (It’s difficult to write a review without giving away some things I’m certain the author would rather you discovered for yourself, however …) Then one night Lou appears on Hank’s doorstep. He has been shot and dies in Hank’s living room. Who would kill a sick man, and why? Maybe it's because of the gargantuan diamond Lou was carrying.

The rest of the short book is about Hank blundering about and discovering or creating dead bodies. After awhile a person just gets tired of yelling stop at the young women going down the basement stairs in the dark to the waiting serial killer. Hank — who is by no means a nubile young woman — leaps down his own metaphorical dark stairs and I got tired of yelling stop.

But … there was a certain panache to Jonathan Ames’ writing that kept me going. That and the book was undemandingly short. And I wanted to see if Happy Doll survived at the end.