There's Never Been A Better Time To Die (Paperback)

There's Never Been A Better Time to Die, a noir/comedy/memoir/satire, is set in Mill Valley, CA. Once the home to the Grateful Dead, Gary Snyder and Sam Shepard, the newer demographic tends toward hedge fund managers, dotcom millionaires and trophy wives. It's a strange place, where people, without any sense of irony, paste "Keep Tahoe Blue" bumper stickers on their gigantic SUVs. Despite widespread affluence, conspicuous consumption and a massive sense of entitlement, there is an undercurrent of fear among the residents--of a downturn causing them to lose it all, of their kids getting mixed up with drinking or drugs, of falling behind their neighbors, and perhaps most of all, of getting found out--behind every great fortune is a great crime. Marin Gothic.

The protagonist (and unreliable first-person narrator) is Rick Davies, a dissipated, ethically challenged (yet somehow charming) Realtor who, while preparing an estate sale, stumbles across what may be an old crime scene. A longtime fan of mystery novels, he decides to take on "the case." Or does he? Is there even a case, or is it just his imagination? Along the way, while unconsciously imitating classic noir characters (Travis McGee, Walter Neff, Chili Palmer), he tools around Mill Valley in his Basic Marin Wheels (yes, that's what they call BMWs), getting into one jam after another, all the while spinning yarns and making derisive social commentary. Every tall tale he tells--essentially everything that occurs in the book, aside from the main plot--actually happened.

The title is, of course, a play on the battle cry of the Realtor, who, no matter what, will tell you, "There's never been a better time to buy." It is a period piece--only it takes place in 2008 (as opposed to peak-noir 1948), when the first ripples of the imminent housing crash were beginning to disturb the placid waters, and everybody from Realtors to home buyers to bankers to tech-bros to baristas was in denial about it. And everything was different in 2008 because there were (barely) any iPhones, Wi-Fi hotspots or Facebook...it might as well have been 1948!