Lew Griffin, private detective, writer, teacher, poet, is alone as the novel opens, looking out of the window into a bitter New Orleans winter. Behind him on the bed lies a body. Lew begins to tell the story of his life, the life of a black man in a white man's world, and to connect the events that brought him to this room. Lew Griffin is getting old, his relationship with Deborah is cracking up, his troubled son David is missing, his friend from the police department has been shot interrupting a robbery. Lew feels directionless, even the request to help a close friend who is receiving threatening letters fails to galvanise him.
This is the sixth in a series of novels and it is a stunning book which will send you out in search of the previous five. Sallis uses the crime novel to dissect the question of identity and self-knowledge. His writing is literate, intelligent, deeply moving, his exploration of what it is to be human is incisive, heartbreaking yet ultimately uplifting. Ghost Of A Flea is a book that you don't want to finish and you can't put down. And when you do reach the end there's an astonishing revelation that makes you want to start all over again.
Manchester Evening News 25.01.02