Tag Archives: #Latasha Harlins

Jim Arnold’s Review of “Your House Will Pay” by Steph Cha

Your House Will PayYour House Will Pay by Steph Cha
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sometimes I think about leaving L.A. – other places are so much less expensive, where life would be easier, and then I read something like YHWP and remember that the grit, that the edge, that the bottomless well of life surges here, and how it excites me, and I stay another year. The book really grew on me – slowly, I came to identify with dueling main characters Grace as well as Shawn, the opposites in this warring clan story (a fictionalized version of the Latasha Harlins murder) which I think points to deftness in the writer. Also, the themes in the novel are so current it truly is like something “ripped from today’s headlines.” For those of us who love L.A. noir tropes, there’s enough real geography and name-dropping for authenticity, from the lunch date with the “showrunner” to the seedy neo “gangster” bar in Palmdale. And how could you not love a climax that includes a Santa Ana wind event, reminiscent of “Day of the Locust?” Highly recommended!

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