5th and Vanguard is set among the atmospheric grit of a seaside town called Berle, and narrated by Julie Page; a writer who, when we’re introduced, suffers from a suffocating lack of artistic inspiration. But inspiration makes a guest-appearance one particularly windy night at the corner of 5th and Vanguard in front of the squinting florescence of Bob’s Liquor Palace as a glamorous, disfigured, old woman emerges from the backseat of a black Cadillac, and alters Julie’s perspective irreversibly.

Lee Adams’ debut novel delivers all of the broken concrete and burnt-out neon of the most memorable noir fiction. This darkly comic mystery explores the pock-marked inner and outer worlds of its heroine as she faces her deadliest fears in an effort to recover her muse. 5th and Vanguard is a story of chemical, emotional, and artistic addiction, and the price one must be willing to pay to stay inspired.

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