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Summary
Summary
A simple case gets murderously complicated when "Nameless," Bill Pronzini's seasoned private-eye, exposes a nasty scam that involves junior account executive Jay Cohalan, his unhappy wife, and a mistress with a serious drug problem. It's the kind of case "Nameless" likes, because bleeders--the blackmailers, extortionists, small-time grifters, and other opportunists who prey on the weak and gullible--top his list of worthless human parasites. So there's nothing he enjoys more than putting another one or two of them out of commission and returning the $75,000 in blackmail cash to its rightful owner. "Nameless," though, cannot so easily close his Cohalan file--not when he finds his client face down in the middle of a four-poster bed with a bloody, powder-scorched hole behind the right ear. And only by a hair's breadth does "Nameless" himself escape a similar cold-blooded fate. His mind and gut wrenched by his brush with death, "Nameless" embarks on a relentless hunt for his unknown assailant in San Francisco's shadowy underworld. There he encounters bleeders of every ilk before he finds his quarry--and confronts his own demons--in a climax as powerful as it is shocking and unexpected.
Author Notes
Bill Pronzini was born in Petaluma, California on April 13, 1943. His first novel, The Stalker, was published in 1971. He is best known for his creation of the Nameless Detective Mystery series, as well as several westerns and novels of dark suspense. He has been a full time writer since 1969. He is also an active anthologist, having compiled more than 100 collections, most of which focus on mystery, western, and science fiction short stories.
He has won numerous awards including three Shamus Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Mystery Writers of America. His book Snowbound received the Grand Prix de la Litterature Policiere, as the best crime novel published in France in 1988. Pronzini has established himself as a master of the Western novel as well as earning a name for himself in the dark fiction genre.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
At age 60, Pronzini's Nameless Detective has been through the wars more than two dozen times in such singular mysteries as Crazybone and Boobytrap. Now the San Francisco-based PI has acquired a daughter, a home and a name "Daddy" that may portend retirement if he can solve a case that spirals from simplicity to murderous complexity in a heartbeat. Hired to safeguard a blackmailed husband's final payoff, Nameless is almost killed and his client is murdered. In addition, the money, the husband, the husband's mistress and a vicious killer all go missing. Nameless has patrolled the mean streets of San Francisco for a long time, and nobody knows them better or performs the traditional PI role better. But age is telling, and his near-death experience has Nameless re-evaluating his relationship with lover Kerry and orphaned Emily. However, before he can resolve his future, Nameless must descend once more into the San Francisco underworld of drug dealers, grifters, users and other "bleeders." Pronzini's storytelling is straightforward, honest and effective. The settings, from the city's slums to its coastal highways, are vividly drawn, and the tawdry denizens Nameless must confront to recover the ransom and find a killer are utterly convincing. Nameless, as suggested here, may be on the verge of a well-earned retirement, but he's in top form as he often has been in Pronzini's award-winning series. (Jan. 1) FYI: A recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private-Eye Writers Association of America, Pronzini has won three Shamus Awards. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Bleeders are blackmailers or other extortionists who prey on the weak and gullible, and the Nameless detective loves to nail them. Jay Cohalan is the apparent victim. A blackmailer has unearthed a seamy incident in Cohalan's past and threatens to expose him unless Cohalan forks over $75 thousand. But Nameless--hired to engineer the money drop--sees through the scam: Cohalan and his mistress are the blackmailers, and the prize is Carolyn Cohalan's recent inheritance. Nameless retrieves the money after the drop, but when he attempts to return it to Carolyn, he finds her dead, and the killer still in the house. The assailant overpowers Nameless, but when he tries to finish him, the gun misfires. Nameless survives, but his confidence is shaken to the core. And he knows he must square the account with his would-be killer. As he follows the trail along the same San Francisco streets he has been walking for decades, Nameless also reassesses his own life. He's 60 and finally sharing his life with loved ones: wife Kerry and adopted daughter Emily. Maybe stakeouts and murder and faulty automatics pointed at the back of the head shouldn't be part of his life anymore. Nameless finds closure with his would-be killer in a surprising fashion and drops strong hints that this may have been his last case. If so, this will make a fine finale to one of the greatest-ever detective series. Nameless has been a part of many readers' lives for three decades; we've watched him evolve both professionally and personally, and if he decides to return, we'll have the red carpet ready to roll. --Wes Lukowsky
Kirkus Review
Is this the end of the Nameless Detective? Could it be that at long last Pronzini is ready to put his oft-battered but never bowed shamus out to well-earned pasture? Well, there are unmistakable valedictory hints. On the final page of the current entry, for instance, Nameless, now 60, allows that 30 years of sleuthing might be enough: "My work was no longer the only thing that defined and sustained me. . . . I was sick of pain and sorrow and blood." Clearly, Weltschmerz has drained Nameless's energy, and maybe his creator's too. This slightest of stories involves a blackmail attempt that turns into a scam of a different color when the putative victim proves villainous, larcenous, and hopelessly inept to boot. The scheme falls apart, but in the process Nameless comes within a misfire of being murdered. In fact, he feels he has been murdered, metaphorically at least, and won't be reborn until he nails the blackhearted perp responsible, a lowlife known only as Dingo. A variety of pulp-begotten characters attempt to block him, but even in the twilight of his career, Nameless has just enough bulldog left in him. He tracks down his nemesis, setting the stage for the kind of high-octane climax in which Nameless has sizzled in the past. Here, however, the foolproof scene fizzles, since you can't have a face-to-face showdown if only one face shows up. After so much good work, his 28th outing (In an Evil Time, 2000, etc.) finds Nameless lifeless.
