With his latest novella John Kemp dives into the film noir genre, & in Sterling he has created a memorable character who could easily have stepped out of the pages of one of James M. Cain's classics; I personally would cast Robert Mitchum to play him in the movie version. Sterling is cynical and world-wise but is self-deprecating about his faults and failures, and colours his running inner monologue throughout with a sardonic humour that makes him a most agreeable tour guide into his seedy underworld workplace; along the way we meet a host of other equally memorable characters who crawl in and out of the shadows to wreak havoc for Sterling. It is clear that the author has an abiding affection for film noir and he more than ably captures the settings and speech that give noir its distinctive sense of time and place. I eagerly await the next chapter in Sterling's story.