A young criminal lawyer in Toronto, Bartholomew Crane, whose guiding moral principle is winning, gets his first murder case. Two girls have disappeared from a northern community near Georgian Bay. Their troubled, but dedicated, high school English teacher, Thom Tripp, has been charged with murder even though no bodies have been found. Crane works for two older law partners, the flamboyant Lyle and the brash Gederov, whose names, when combined, suggest the firm's reputation: "Lie and Get'em Off." Crane is skeptical when they force the case onto him; he's afraid they're not telling him everything, or setting him up for something. We get the first glimpse of a theme that runs through the book: that dark and ominous forces lurk beneath the surface waiting to pull prey under.

The circumstances of the case might suggest undertones of To Kill A Mockingbird, but Crane is no Atticus Finch. He is a coke-snorting, stripper-loving bachelor, with a penchant for young girls, who can't remember the last time he's been with a woman and hasn't had an erection for even longer. Crane is neither hero nor striving underdog. And that's what makes him compelling. Cynical and intelligent without a trace of sentiment, he is the logical, post-modern progeny of the first modern man, and perhaps the first noir character, Hamlet.

When the ambivalent Crane speeds to the northern community in his rented Cadillac, the reader is riding in the passenger seat like a kidnapped, apartment-kept dog - tongue hanging, head out the window, excited by the trip and glad to have exchanged the confinement of safe existence for adventure with an uncertain master. But the pace of Pyper's prose seems defined by setting. The arrogant and relentless tone used to depict the action in the busy city gives way to reflection and uncertainty once Crane reaches the boonies.

Once north, the dominant conflict is internal. The main character struggles against his drug habit and his past. The spirit of the town's conscience, haunted by an act of bigotry hidden in its past, seeps into the lawyer's psyche. The result is a kaleidoscope narrative that revolves around the trauma of his youth. Crane's unraveling of blocked memories adds tension to the external drama and allows the delayed disclosure of withheld information necessary for suspense.

The demands of this internal battle - or perhaps the fear of being slapped with a "genre" label, which seems detrimental to the literary reputation of young, serious Canadian writers - de-emphasizes the external drama. Leonard Cohen once said he didn't work for money, but wanted to be paid for his work. I've always viewed plot in the same light: I don't read for plot, but I like being pulled to the next insight and coterie of compelling phrases rather than pushing myself. The proper balance of tension between internal conflict and external drama (and not their necessary resolution), as well as the underlying connections between them, seem to elevate novels above genre and are, perhaps, among the distinguishing features of noir.

The missing half of the ripped portrait rendered at the end of the novel is imaginative and gratifying, although some may find it a bit convenient. But unlike Hamlet, who authors his own fate, the main character in lost girls often "finds himself" within the action in the book. And, although he may be thinking it and it may even be true, Hamlet never utters the words, "For the first time in twenty years I'm trying to do something right and I may be going about it all wrong, but I'm new at this sort of thing," as Bartholomew Crane does. With all his faults and failings, Hamlet retains the same noir complexity in death that he possesses when we first meet him.

Already the author of an acclaimed collection of short stories, Pyper's first novel lost girls should confirm his reputation as a talented, emerging Canadian writer.