Boulevard Dreams

I experienced some nondescript dreams concerning my best friend for many of my schoolboy years, but who I had not seen or spoken to for most of my adult life, and so I decided to look him up, starting online by delving into our high school reunion yearbook for further information of his whereabouts. Shockingly, and quite devastatingly, I found he died many years before at a fairly young age, thereby inspiring the genesis of this story. And although the novel completely departs from what I knew of him, whenever I look at the book, I think of him, and with enduring fondness. 
My love for great film noirs of the 30's through the 50's inspired much of the rest, especially The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and Kiss Me Deadly, but I held no interest in duplicating them or the novels upon which they were based, desiring to inject as much dark humor into the story, the characters, and the dialog as would allow while hopefully still maintaining some semblance of a noir. 
In the end, I was truly inspired to create this book, in fact, shortly after learning of my friend’s death, I broke away from the novel I was writing in favor of Boulevard Dreams, but ironically, while I’m composing these notes, I’m wrapping up the novel I broke away from with intentions on releasing it in November.