It is a hardboiled detective story set in an affluent Californian high school where everyone speaks a wonderful mixture of teen slang and 70-year-old pulp lingo.

ECONOMIST: Independent films

The festival's four egg contests include a five-minute hardboiled-egg eating contest, usually winnable with 25, and egg roulette, where contestants smash one of six eggs against their face.

WSJ: Big Chocolate Eggs May Be Big, but Big Hen's Eggs Not So Much

But unlike so many pretentious works of fiction today, Estleman's hardboiled, Detroit-based tales of intrigue, wrongdoing and, ultimately, justice develop three-dimensional, often unforgettable characters (among them in this book, a Larry Flynt-like pornographer) set in finely wrought, factually described settings.

FORBES: Fact And Comment