Heath Lowrance's Reviews > All Souls Are Final

A fun, strange, occasionally trippy P.I. novel that really subverts expectations about what a hero private dick is supposed to be. Vic Valentine is very clearly author Will Viharo’s avatar, and Will uses Valentine to express his own interests and obsessions, his own feelings about himself and the world around him, his own philosophies. I’ve known Will for some time on social media, and so really enjoyed what ultimately amounted to a peek inside his head. And I especially loved the mirror carnival world this took place in, a world where every bar shows grindhouse movies on their screens and every car is a sleek roadster or a 70s muscle car and every woman is a sexed-up super vixen. On the surface, it’s an ideal world for someone like Viharo/Valentine, but Valentine’s own tenuous grip on reality somehow gives it a sinister undertone. There’s cracks in that neon facade, and there are cracks in our hero’s psyche. Great book.