Alex Novalis
2 primary works
Book 1
In May of 1968, New York City is broke and on the skids, and private eye Alex Novalis is hard up for gigs. So when he’s offered a case from wealthy construction mogul Gabriel Kravitz, he can’t refuse.
Kravitz’s eighteen-year-old daughter Lydia has gone missing. Though she’s presumed to be with Jerry Pedrosian, the radical middle-aged artist and known womanizer she’d been sleeping with, there are few clues. Information is hard to come by; everyone seems to be hiding something. And then there’s Andrea Marshall, Lydia’s miniskirted and vinyl-booted best friend, who Novalis is deeply distrustful of…and unfortunately attracted to.
But as Novalis traverses the city, tracking Lydia from scummy artists’ lofts in pre-gentrified SoHo to luxury penthouses overlooking Central Park, he’ll face threats deadlier than any he signed on for.
Smart and sophisticated, Good Girl, Bad Girl provides a rare, fascinating snapshot of late 1960s New York City—a glimpse into the forbidden sex, politics, art, drugs, and counterculture violence that ran rampant in its once gloriously gritty streets.
Book 2
When a panicked young woman slips her hand into his in 1960s Chinatown, just before a knife-wielding stalker attacks, private eye Alex Novalis finds his cherished hard-boiled persona threatened by a romantic streak that has a habit of getting him into trouble. Sandy Smollett is triple trouble—a stripper who comes on like the girl next door and has a way of bending the truth to suit any occasion. Novalis finds her irresistible.
It doesn’t help that her mobster boss, a sleazy politico, and an attorney brandishing an envelope stuffed with cash all warn Novalis that Sandy is strictly off limits. Things don’t get easier when Novalis finds a dead man in her apartment, or when they both are kidnapped by homicidal thugs. Who is Sandy Smollett? For once she tells the truth when she tells Novalis, “I’m the Girl from Nowhere.”
Christopher Finch’s sophisticated sequel to Good Girl, Bad Girl unfolds against the background of a volatile era of social upheaval.