Malraux and the Midnight Organ Fight is a fast-paced, frenetic YA thriller that falls somewhere between Sherlock Holmes, "Rick & Morty" and the first Frightened Rabbit album.
The book is about two teen detectives named Weston and Malraux who are trying to solve a series of grisly murders one summer in San Francisco.
After a nasty spat between the boys breaks up their world famous Bohemia Solutions detective agency, Weston accepts a full-ride tennis scholarship to Harvard and leaves behind the idiosyncratic Malraux, who was always the true genius behind the duo's success.
While Weston labors at Harvard, he loses touch completely with Malraux, who not only refuses to respond to his imploring letters, but his anti-technology policy-no phones, no computers-makes him virtually unreachable. Rumored by his online fans to have been spotted in France, Spain, Iceland, Tanzania and at Coachella, Bohemia Solutions' Instagram feed (@bohemiasolutions) is continually jammed with purported Malraux sightings: (#malrauxkickingitinparis, #malrauxinmadrid) and opinions about the future of the agency (#whoneedsweston).
But when Weston returns from college to find that the owner of his favorite café' has been murdered he also finds that the carnage is only just beginning. Soon the news reports a killer on the loose and a rising body count; even grimmer is the bodies are found minus several of their vital organs.
Wanting to solve the crime, Weston tracks down the mercurial Malraux in hopes of convincing him to reopen the agency for the summer and solve the murders that are plaguing their city.
The two teens agree to put their differences aside and set to solving this disturbing mystery before the police beat them to it.
...and before Weston heads back to college.
Malraux's unconventional sleuthing leads the reunited duo into darker and stranger places than they've ever been before. There are back alley midnight surgeries, thrash metal ninjas, devious doctors, bodies in suitcases, black market organ rings, aimless tech start-ups, tween fanboys, shirtless motivational speakers, and a muscle-bound Russian who wears a black leather bird mask and wields a deadly cleaver.
There's also a girl named Eloise who writes for Pitchfork that both boys may be in love with.
In between all the dark mayhem, is a philosophical meditation on the mysteries of friendship and love, and a lesson about how to come through when it really counts.
