>I need something less unrelentingly gray.
I recently read a light novel by Poppy Z. Brite, _Liquor_. She's best known for horror (not my cup of tea)--this is a restaurant novel set in New Orleans, and it's very good. I'm anxiously awaiting the second book, _Prime_, which is now over a week overdue at the library. She's got two others in the series, one just out (_Soul Kitchen_) and one about to be out (_D*U*C*K_, formerly _The Big D_ and _Waiting for Bobby Hebert_), and is working on the post-Katrina one, _Dead Shrimp Blues_, right now.
Oh, and there's a pre-restaurant novel about Rickey and G-man, _The Value of X_, which I've also yet to find. The weblog is worth reading, too: docbrite.livejournal.com