Hard-boiled detective fans should follow 'The Washington Trail'

"Raymond Chandler is my patron saint," says Lou Aguilar.

The Miami-based writer proves his devotion early in his new thriller, "The Washington Trail," when a potential client named Amy Gallup shows up at the office of our detective heroes:

A stunning young woman swept in. Thick auburn hair fell on both sides of her emerald eyes, fine nose, and full pink lips. A peach cashmere sweater didn’t constrain her bosom, neither did the blue scotch-patterned skirt her curvaceous hips. Grey silk tights showcased shapely legs down to her ankle-high brown suede boots. She was carrying a small black purse.

This, boys and girls, is what we used to call a femme fatale.

'I had the idea that only in Washington can you start out with the most trivial case possible and have it escalate to a national threat.'

You see, back before every woman was a special-forces-trained black belt capable of dispatching five grown men at once, members of the fairer sex had to rely on other methods of subduing their prey. Often that meant appealing to the dreaded "male gaze."

Beneath his hard-boiled exterior, Chandler's Philip Marlowe had a penchant for poetry and chess. Aguilar's Mark Slade is more of an '80s music and classic Westerns guy.

We first meet the Afghanistan veteran and former Army Ranger on the job, as he tools through Washington, D.C., disguised as a bike messenger, tailing a man to the sounds of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" blasting in his earbuds.

Slade gets his man, but only after utterly destroying dinner service at a tony Georgetown restaurant. The phrase "loose cannon" comes to mind.

Naturally, he has a by-the-book counterpart to rein him in: Neil Cork, a former G-man as quick with his wits as Slade is with his fists. Their partnership recalls classic duos like Bill Cosby and Robert Culp in "I Spy" and Spenser and Hawk in Robert B. Parker's Spenser series.

The resemblance is intentional. Aguilar is a longtime fan of the genre, one who's noticed a distinct change in recent years. "You go into the mystery section of the bookstore, and it's all women [writers] with these sensitive men," he says, also lamenting the "complete disappearance of sex appeal."

Aethon Books

Aguilar, a columnist and veteran screenwriter with three novels under his belt, saw his chance to rectify the situation while fulfilling his lifelong dream of writing a hard-boiled detective novel.

As in the best detective novels, Slade's D.C. stomping grounds are a character in their own right — as vital to the story as Boston is to Spenser's exploits and Los Angeles is to Marlowe's.

In fact, Aguilar tells Align, he came up with the city before the character. It was in Washington, D.C., that he cut his teeth as a young reporter, working for the Post at the tail end of the legendary Ben Bradlee era.

Aguilar's deep familiarity with his former home is apparent on every page, giving the novel an authentic sense of place. The setting also proves ideal for Aguilar's premise.

"I had the idea that only in Washington can you start out with the most trivial case possible and have it escalate to a national threat."

Sure enough, when Slade and Cork accept what they think will be a routine errant boyfriend case, they soon find themselves caught between a secretive right-wing cabal within the U.S. government and a group of extreme leftist eco-terrorists, both after the sinister-sounding Apocalypse Mask.

Refreshingly enough, it's the eco-terrorists who emerge as the main baddies. Their ranks include Suzo, a menacing, masculine woman more than happy to answer Slade's "transphobic" wisecracks by reassigning his gender with a cattle prod. You probably won't be seeing a "Slade and Cork" series on Netflix any time soon.

The high-stakes plot invests "The Washington Trail" with potent old-school Tom Clancy technothriller suspense, which Aguilar masterfully blends with the book's satisfying noir atmosphere. It clips along at the pace of an "airport read," while still finding time to linger in moments of genuine emotion. There are plenty of laughs, too — Slade isn't the type to keep his mouth shut when he should.

Billed as "A Slade and Cork Mystery," "The Washington Trail" tells a gripping, twisting stand-alone story, while introducing us to characters we'd be happy to follow on many adventures to come. Aguilar is working on a follow-up, slated for release next fall.

"They don't make 'em any more," says Slade of a poster for the John Wayne classic "El Dorado" that hangs in his apartment. "Too triggering."

Fortunately the same can no longer be said about the hard-boiled detective novel, thanks to this fine debut from Aguilar. You can read an excerpt of "The Washington Trail" here, courtesy of Aethon Books.

"The Washington Trail" is available to purchase here.