Foreword Reviews 2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards Finalist

2016 New York Book Festival – Runner Up

“Klingler presents his craftiest yarn to date, summoning the pulpy spirits of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. The setting of Chicago rattles from the page in lines such as, ‘The buildings held noise and exhaust fumes around me like a torture chamber.'” –Kirkus Reviews (Kirkus Recommended List)

Tommy has boomeranged back to his parents residence and a dead-end job after too many years in college. As he looks squarely at his next decade of life, his smartphone convinces him the time is ripe for a change. A gift from his grandfather provides the means, so he embarks on the path of blues artists and beatniks before him–and hits the road.

He immediately meets a damsel in hitchhiking distress who says her name is Mona. Her presence persuades him that the bright lights and dark clubs of Chicago might be his kind of town. So on a summer Saturday night they settle into a fancy hotel overlooking the beaches of Lake Michigan.

On Sunday…Mona disappears.

But she leaves behind more than a sweet memory that involves Tommy in a brand new cash flow problem he never imagined. While trying to sort out how to stay on the right side of the law and get back on the road, he meets a young criminologist who helps him, a DJ who doesn’t, and a librarian who teaches him about the city, women, and the art of the makeover. After truth and lies are stirred like a blue martini, being assaulted by a pink monkey, and witnessing a drive-by shooting that drowns a Ferrari–Tommy is desperate to help Mona.

If he can find her.

“A private investigator, a mysterious hitchhiker, dancers, gangsters, a mysterious bag that holds the unthinkable and twists and turns that will have the reader unable to put it down, Missing Mona by Joe Klingler has it all.”–San Francisco Book Review (5 of 5 stars)

Foreword Reviews 2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards Finalist
2016 New York Book Festival – Runner Up

“Klingler presents his craftiest yarn to date, summoning the pulpy spirits of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. The setting of Chicago rattles from the page in lines such as, ‘The buildings held noise and exhaust fumes around me like a torture chamber.'” –Kirkus Reviews (Kirkus Recommended List)

Tommy has boomeranged back to his parents residence and a dead-end job after too many years in college. As he looks squarely at his next decade of life, his smartphone convinces him the time is ripe for a change. A gift from his grandfather provides the means, so he embarks on the path of blues artists and beatniks before him–and hits the road.

He immediately meets a damsel in hitchhiking distress who says her name is Mona. Her presence persuades him that the bright lights and dark clubs of Chicago might be his kind of town. So on a summer Saturday night they settle into a fancy hotel overlooking the beaches of Lake Michigan.

On Sunday…Mona disappears.

But she leaves behind more than a sweet memory that involves Tommy in a brand new cash flow problem he never imagined. While trying to sort out how to stay on the right side of the law and get back on the road, he meets a young criminologist who helps him, a DJ who doesn’t, and a librarian who teaches him about the city, women, and the art of the makeover. After truth and lies are stirred like a blue martini, being assaulted by a pink monkey, and witnessing a drive-by shooting that drowns a Ferrari–Tommy is desperate to help Mona.

If he can find her.

“A private investigator, a mysterious hitchhiker, dancers, gangsters, a mysterious bag that holds the unthinkable and twists and turns that will have the reader unable to put it down, Missing Mona by Joe Klingler has it all.”–San Francisco Book Review (5 of 5 stars)