I kept seeing the word noir used to describe Edgar Award winner Jordan Harper’s latest, Everybody Knows. After a few hmmms, I looked it up, thinking I was unclear as to what it really meant. I got this: “a genre of crime film or fiction characterized by cynicism, fatalism, and moral ambiguity.” Thanks to Mulholland Books and NetGalley, I dove right in.

One reviewer said this book is “as noir as it gets.” Not sure about that, but I did like it once I got into it. I’m kind of a sucker for stuff that digs into the less glitzy reality of LA, the behind-the-scenes stuff set in Hollywood, and a good murder mystery always helps. A young woman named Mae works as a publicist whose work revolves around covering up the misdeeds and crimes of the rich and famous while promoting them with more or less true good stories about them. Mae’s boss gets gunned down in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel, leading her and her ex-boyfriend, a former cop named Chris, into an investigation of the crime. Next thing you know, we have pedophilia, drugs and more drugs, famous creeps, homeless encampments, and crooked cops. 

The title refers to the way everybody knows what is going on under the surface (or behind the scenes), but people don’t talk about it if the money is good enough. Overall, once it got going, it was great fun. Four stars.