The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of
On sale
27th March 2014
Price: £5.99
Selected:
ebook / ISBN-13: 9781444784527
‘After forty years Hammett has a worthy successor’ The Times
Dave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlow Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them he was tough determined and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them he was gay.
Joseph Hansen’s groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky passions run high and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.
Police Chief Ben Orton swore he’d keep ‘big city vice’ out of his town. So no one is too surprised when he turns up dead – but Dave thinks pinning his murder on gay activist Cliff Kerlee is just a bit too convenient. His investigation uncovers a community cowed by one man and a police force with its own ideas of law and order.
Dave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlow Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them he was tough determined and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them he was gay.
Joseph Hansen’s groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky passions run high and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.
Police Chief Ben Orton swore he’d keep ‘big city vice’ out of his town. So no one is too surprised when he turns up dead – but Dave thinks pinning his murder on gay activist Cliff Kerlee is just a bit too convenient. His investigation uncovers a community cowed by one man and a police force with its own ideas of law and order.
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Reviews
Hansen, one of the best practitioners of the California private-eye school...writes crisply with a lean, spare prose that echoes Hammett, Chandler and Macdonald
Hansen is a strong unflinching writer and everything in his taut prose is real
An excellent craftsman, a compelling writer, he has a real gift for storytelling - for character, for scene, for pace independent of violence
The most exciting and effective writer of the classic private-eye novel working today
In Brandstetter, Hansen has developed a sympathetic character of depth and integrity
No mystery writer is better at evoking the landscape, the light, the architecture and the ethnic diversity of Los Angeles
An exceptionally urbane literary style
Hansen writes about Southern California with the descriptive love once given it by Raymond Chandler
