Desert City Diva by Corey Lynn Fayman

"A darkly humorous noir mystery featuring laidback, guitar-playing private investigator Rolly Waters." 

Rolly Waters has many reasons to regret going out for Mexican food at 2.30 in the morning. Not least because then he would never have met dance-club DJ Macy Starr possibly the most infuriatingly unpredictable and secretive client he has ever taken on. 

Macy Starr wants Rolly to find out what happened to the young woman she knew as Aunt Betty, the woman who rescued her as a child and who then disappeared without a trace. The only clue she has to go on is a curious one-stringed guitar. 

Rolly s investigation leads to a weird world of alien-obsessed cults, a strange desert hideaway known as Slab City and to a 20-year-old unsolved murder case. But how can he solve the mystery if he can't even trust his own client?

Boredom, and a warped sense of literary ambition led him to conceive of the character of Rolly Waters, the guitar-playing detective first featured in the San Diego Book Awards nominated mystery Black’s Beach Shuffle. Unduly encouraged by this early success, or perhaps from a personal need for symbolic revenge against guitar playing show-offs, he set about writing a second Rolly Waters Mystery, Border Field Blues, winner of the Genre Award at the 2013 Hollywood Book Festival. 

Unlike his hard-rocking protagonist, Mr. Fayman can only manage a couple of beers before he has to lie down and take a nap. He’s managed to stay married to the same woman for more years than either of them probably expected, aided by a shared love for improvised driving adventures and an arid sense of humor. Many years soaking up the temperate climate that Mr. Fayman’s hometown is famous for has had no noticeable effect on his attitude.
http://www.coreylynnfayman.com/

Rolly Waters is a musician, guitar player who is not real successful at it, plays at different gigs but nothing steady. That is why he is a detective. The story starts off with Rolly regretting having Mexican food at 2:30 in the morning. The Mexican food wasn't the issue it was the spider bite on his ankle. Rolly wakes up in the hospital after having been bit by the spider, not quite sure how that happened and how he ended up in the hospital ER.

While he is at the Mexican restaurant, The Villa Cantina, he meets Macy Starr introduced by the waitress, Macy needs help. Macy is a dance club DJ, 20 years younger than Rolly. She has with her a one string guitar called a Diddly Bow.  The Diddley Bow is a single stringed American instrument which influenced the blues sound. Attached to the back of this diddley bow is an old photograph picturing a man and woman. Macy thinks the woman in the picture is her Aunt Betty. She wants Rolly to help her find out if this is true or not. The book takes off from there, with a kind of story that you would think was hard to believe, it involves the reservation and a cult of people who either committed suicide or were killed. 

What a fun book, quirky, odd with a cast of characters like you would find in a Raymond Chandler or Elmore Leonard story. An unbelievable story line is written in such a way that while reading you start to believe what is written and it ends in a surprising way. Funny at times but also suspenseful.This book was fast paced, a bit slow for me at first but it did take off and I read it in only a few sittings. 

I received a copy of this book for my honest opinion.