Ames, Jonathan

Jonathan Ames is the author of the novels I Pass Like Night, The Extra Man, and Wake Up, Sir!, as well as the nonfiction books The Double Life Is Twice as Good: Essays and Fiction, What’s Not to Love?, My Less Than Secret Life, I Love You More Than You Know, and most recently, You Were Never Really Here (adapted into the film starring Joaquin Phoenix). He’s the creator of two TV series, Blunt Talk and Bored to Death, and fought two amateur boxing matches as “The Herring Wonder.” Happy Doll, the title character of A Man Named Doll: A Novel (Mulholland Books), is a charming if occasionally inexpert private detective living beneath the Hollywood sign. A veteran of both the Navy and LAPD, Doll supplements his meager income as a P.I. by working at a local Thai spa that offers its clients “special services.” Armed with his 16-inch steel telescopic baton and biting dry humor, he protects the women who work there from clients who don’t understand the word “no.” But he’s out of his depth with one violent patron – and then an old friend from his days as a cop shows up at his door with a bullet in his gut.