Members, remember to participate in our free book programs by Saturday!

Summary and Reviews of The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem

The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem

The Feral Detective

A Novel

by Jonathan Lethem
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • Nov 6, 2018, 336 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Aug 2019, 336 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

Jonathan Lethem's first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn.

Phoebe Siegler first meets Charles Heist in a shabby trailer on the eastern edge of Los Angeles. She's looking for her friend's missing daughter, Arabella, and hires Heist to help. A laconic loner who keeps his pet opossum in a desk drawer, Heist intrigues the sarcastic and garrulous Phoebe. Reluctantly, he agrees to help. The unlikely pair navigate the enclaves of desert-dwelling vagabonds and find that Arabella is in serious trouble—caught in the middle of a violent standoff that only Heist, mysteriously, can end. Phoebe's trip to the desert was always going to be strange, but it was never supposed to be dangerous. ...

Jonathan Lethem's first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn, The Feral Detective is a singular achievement by one of our greatest writers.

3

A voice behind the brass # 8 called, "It's open." I pushed in. The usual law of glaring sunlight applied, so I was blinded in the gloom. There wasn't a foyer or waiting area, let alone a secretary screening his appointments. I'd lurched into the so-called suite, a large, cluttered, murky space that grew darker when the voice said "Close the door" and I obeyed. In the instant I'd had to discern outlines, I made out the boat-sized desk, the figure behind it, the shapes along the walls, all inanimate. No other bodies waiting in ambush, I felt reasonably sure. I could be back through the door before he'd be around the desk. I had pepper spray and a tiny compressed-air klaxon horn in my purse. I'd never used either one, and the klaxon was maybe a joke.

"Phoebe Siegler?" The only lamp in the room sat on the desk. All I saw was jeans and boots. The lamp had for company only a landline, a heavy black office phone. No computer.

"Sorry I'm late," I said, ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

I fell in love with Jonathan Lethem's writing when I read Motherless Brooklyn, twice. And while I have loved all of his novels since, I've really been waiting for another mystery. Happily. Ecstatically. This is it! The one I've been waiting for. Okay. It's not quite a mystery in the traditional sense, but that is Lethem's ultimate charm. The plot isn't so much a whodunit as it is a whoisit.....continued

Full Review Members Only (751 words)

(Reviewed by Donna Chavez).

Media Reviews

The Huffington Post
Lethem [is] a master of the genre-bending detective novel and eccentric characters.

The Washington Post
A highbrow mystery . . . Fans of Motherless Brooklyn take note

Booklist
Starred Review. A funny but rage-fueled stunner... Utterly unique and absolutely worthwhile.

Kirkus Reviews
Surrealistic, genre-bending ... A haunting tour of the gulf between the privileged and the dispossessed.

Author Blurb Colson Whitehead
The Feral Detective investigates our haunted America in all its contemporary guises — at the edge of the city, beyond the blank desert, in the apartment next door. It's a nimble and uncanny performance, brimming with Lethem's trademark verve and wit.

Author Blurb Dana Spiotta
Wild, urgent, and very funny. As always, Lethem writes knowingly and brilliantly about weird, off-the-grid, wayward America. In his ever-more-electric prose, he illuminates both the barbarity and the beauty.

Author Blurb Joshua Cohen
I want to read a shelf of Heist. I want to make him my new Travis McGee, and that's, seriously, the highest praise I know.

Author Blurb Megan Abbott
Like The Crying of Lot 49 as written and directed by Elaine May, The Feral Detective is hilarious and terrifying and wrenching. Phoebe is one of the grandest, funniest heroes I've come upon in a long time.

Reader Reviews

Booklover

Phoebe, c'est moi!
Just loved this book which I have been listening to, over and over again on Audible. The narrator is fantastic and Lethem is quite the wordsmith, no doubt about it. I have just fallen in love with the way this author writes, so creative and original...   Read More

Write your own review!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



Living Off the Grid

A house in the eco-friendly off-grid community of Matavenero in SpainIn Jonathan Lethem's The Feral Detective, New York City journalist Phoebe Siegler ventures into the often perilous world of people living a hardscrabble existence in a California mountain range. She is trying to find a college-age girl who may have become enthralled with the notion of a life independent of modern society and its demanding constraints. On first blush it does sound like an ideal set-up. No job. No mortgage or car payment. Just sun and rain and the stars on high as tawny-skinned children dressed in homespun jumpsuits frolic with one's own livestock, roaming freely and munching on homegrown celery root and lettuce. This type of life – far from modern conveniences such as microwaves, televisions, hot-and-cold ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Feral Detective, try these:

  • The Golden State jacket

    The Golden State

    by Lydia Kiesling

    Published 2019

    About this book

    A gorgeous, raw debut novel about a young woman braving the ups and downs of motherhood in a fractured America.

  • Bad Country jacket

    Bad Country

    by CB McKenzie

    Published 2016

    About this book

    The newest winner of the Tony Hillerman Prize, a debut mystery set in the Southwest starring a former rodeo cowboy turned private investigator, told in a transfixingly original style.

Read-Alikes are one of the many benefits of membership. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Jonathan Lethem
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The Frozen River
    by Ariel Lawhon
    "I cannot say why it is so important that I make this daily record. Perhaps because I have been ...
  • Book Jacket: Everything We Never Had
    Everything We Never Had
    by Randy Ribay
    Francisco Maghabol has recently arrived in California from the Philippines, eager to earn money to ...
  • Book Jacket: The Demon of Unrest
    The Demon of Unrest
    by Erik Larson
    In the aftermath of the 1860 presidential election, the divided United States began to collapse as ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now