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Posted Up On Amazon and titled Brilliant Noir -- Thank you, Dear Reader

The Moth, a contemporary noir novel, by Scott Archer Jones, is an unvarnished portrait of a man trying to get by in the unvarnished but compelling world of East Los Angeles. Moth, the man, runs a pawn shop that purveys not only the cast-offs of the desperate, but also the tools of crime. Jones masterfully describes a life spent on the dangerous fringes of a world where no deed—good or bad—goes unpunished.

In a series of brilliant noir vignettes, Jones crafts the image of a life, and a world filled with unforgettable characters, expertly drawn in language that reflects the poetics of the street. In general, the Moth can’t catch a break, even when he simply wants to get laid. The pimp always gets his cut. In every scene, characters are drawn with scalpel-like precision:

“The barrel of a man parked right beside him. Landed so close their hips touched. He stank, stained the air with hair pomade, with bay rum cologne, with days of sweat. The stranger opened his carton and with a plastic fork ferreted out something pasty white and unrecognizable. Three times he did this, crammed his mouth full. Frank watched for the swallow. The five o’clock shadow chomped, the black hair flopped out as the head plunged down to the carton then jerked up, porpoising food. The fat, sensual lips, muffled by food, said, ‘My name’s Little Wheezy.’”

The Moth always seems to bite off more than he can chew, and the reader is willingly sucked along for the ride from one disaster to the next. The Moth is an addictive read—once, twice, thrice.