The Man Who Fought alone by Stephan Donaldson

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You might know Stephan Donaldson best from his Thomas Covenant series of books. But while he was writing those book. he wrote a series of noir detective novels under the pseudonym "Reed Stephens". Much later as his output lessoned and more people wrote different series of novels under the same name, he put out the novels under his own name. He might even had wanted to cash in on his name.
I kind of gave up on the series. The lead characters were full of self loathing that was unrelenting. They never did anything that they felt was redeeming. Imagine if Thomas Convenant and all his problems went around solving crimes. Yeeha, good times.
But then I heard that one of the mysteries was centered at a Martial Arts tournament in Texas. For some inexplicable reason I felt compelled to read it.
First off, Donaldson has spent a lot of time training in Shotokan Karate. Which gives some credibility to his depiction of the tournament.
It was funny to see the depiction of the various groups of martial artists from Karate to Kung Fu to Tae kwon Do. From my limited knowledge they did seem pretty accurate. Although the bias in favor of Karate was pretty evident.
The story was good. The depression of the main character kept coming has he tried to make sense of his life and his relationships. You'd probably have to really like Donaldson story telling to want to wade through this book.