Love is a Racket.

In his first novel since Stray Dogs, John Ridley offers up a brilliant noir farce.Everything's a racket for Jeffty Kittridge, ex-wannabe scriptwriter living on the skids in Hollywood: the two-bit con he pulls for spending money, the way he convinces himself he's not drinking, how he tries to persuade the local shark that he'll pay off his 15K debt. But he's not very good at it: he's seen jail twice; the bug he just felt on his neck may be the first installment of the DTs; and he's recently received a payment-due reminder of broken thumbs. In fact, Jeffty is a big-time loser, and getting bigger all the time.Until he stumbles on a street-hardened, exquisitely beautiful young homeless woman who inspires love ... and the idea for the perfect con. It's Jeffty's chance to hit it big, to be set for life in a new life with his new love ... except -- as the story speeds him toward what he imagines will be a moment of blissed-out consummation, he's actually on his way to discovering that love can be the biggest racket of them all.Smart, edgy, caustically funny, Love is a Racket puts John Ridley in a darkly comic league of his own.

At several points Love Is a Racket is outright offensive in its depiction of Jeffty Kittridge's Hollywood skid-row world. Yet, Jeffty's narrative voice is so compelling, so real, that you want to know how he makes out.

The novel begins with Ty--a heavy working for the local loan shark, Dumas--breaking Jeffty's fingers. The fingers become a symbol of Jeffty's relentless bad luck as he tries and fails time and again to make the $15,000 he owes Dumas. Years ago, the reader discovers, Jeffty had come to Hollywood as an aspiring scriptwriter (a life that Jonathan Ridley lived, ultimately writing episodes of Martin, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and The John Laroquette Show), but he now declares himself a grifter, a gambler, and, gradually, a drunk. Several roads to salvation emerge in Jeffty's nightmare life. At one point, it seems that a day at the races just might erase his debts. His "friend," Nellis, reappears at another moment--a junkie and, strangely, a master of Zen poker who hopes to win Jeffty's money for him. And, finally, Mona, an attractive young homeless woman, keeps showing up until Jeffty realizes that she is his last chance for escape.

Despite its grim subject matter, the book is sexy and often outright funny. ("My good luck was LA's a great place to work. Except for the smog and the gang violence, the brushfires in summer, the rain and floods in the winter, it's great.") Ridley injects bits of Eastern mysticism and icy realism to suggest a deeper truth behind Jeffty's tragicomic façade. While it's not a book for the overly sensitive, it is a masterpiece of noir black comedy that recalls Elmore Leonard's best writing. --Patrick O'Kelley