Additional Attendee (A Paulwhatshisname Mystery Book # 1) by Josh Harper

Paul, a part-time actor and full-time egoist, just knows that his wife is having an affair with the dog trainer who lives upstairs in their luxury apartment building. But when he tries to catch them in the act, he finds their neighbor’s corpse instead. And now he can’t find his wife anywhere. With only the building’s alluring front desk person to help him, Paul must find the killer before the cops pin the murder on him. Soon, he discovers that his fellow over-privileged tenants aren’t as bland as their jobs in digital marketing suggest, and he is drawn into a hidden world of greed, lust, and misused animal narcotics. But Paul’s biggest obstacle to solving this mystery lies within himself. Can he stop lying, navel-gazing, and indulging in his own depression long enough to do some actual detective work? Or is the pool on the roof too damn enticing?

While serving up a who-done-it in the vein of Anthony Horowitz’s Hawthorne and Horowitz series, Additional Attendee maintains the momentum and contains the grit of an Elmore Leonard novel. Along the way, it offers up a healthy dose of existential comedy in the tradition of Gary Shteyngart and Sam Lipsyte.  (Summary via Goodreads)

Additional Attendee, written by Josh Harper, is his debut book and the first in his Paulwhatshisname Mystery series.  Josh sets the stage nicely with the characters and the setting.  Readers will be drawn in instantly and seeing as it takes place mostly in an upscale apartment building, you are sure to want to rent one so you can stay longer .... just be aware of your surroundings.

Readers are introduced to Paul, one of the tenants, who doesn't seem happy with his life.  He thinks that his wife, Laura, is cheating on him with someone in the building so he sets out to find out.  Unfortunately when he goes to the guys apartment to confront him, he finds him dead.  The one good thing about his going there is that he got  Alina who works the desk in the lobby to go with him.

Paul doesn't want to tell the police the real reason for being in the dead guys apartment so he lies and tries to get  Alina to lie also.  Alina doesn't so now Paul is on the police's radar.  

Things just keep getting worse for Paul .... Laura never returned home from going to the gym and is not answering her cell phone.  Paul never imagined that he would walk into their apartment and find his wife dead in their bed but that is exactly what happens.  Now he is trying to solve both murders because he knows he didn't kill anyone .... even though the detective is hot on is tail to arrest !!!

Harper has a way with words, and sorry that some of them are curse words.  He paints the picture beautifully for readers to want to keep reading.  You will love the setting and you cannot help but love Paul.

It's not often that you get a cozy mystery written by a man so I guess we should give them some slack when we have one .....  You can usually tell when reading a book whether it is written by a male or female and there is nothing wrong with that.