Dead Man: A Novel of Suspense [Unabridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Joe Gores (Author), Lloyd Battista (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1995

Swept away from his loving family when his computer investigations make him the target of a mysterious enemy, Eddie Dain resurfaces as a trained killer with deadly instincts and a drive for revenge. Reprint. NYT. PW. K.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

No matter how many transformations PI Eddie Dain undergoes, readers will remember him as first met--a sunny, bookish and chess-playing computer whiz in northern California, delighted with his vibrant young wife and three-year-old son. Eddie's hubris and naivete lead to a brutal shoot-out, leaving him alone and, after extensive physical rehabilitation, coldly intent on revenge. With his body trained to a muscular machine, he uses his computer skills to become Travis Holt, an accountant in Las Vegas where he learns how to deal with the underside of the law. That task accomplished, he returns to San Francisco as Dain, a PI willing to undertake shady assignments, notably one for a scummy investment lawyer in Chicago caught in a bearer-bond scam. Although Dain renews his acquaintance with a rare book dealer and a cop from earlier days, he remains empty inside, beset by nightmares of his family's final moments and motivated solely to avenge their deaths. Gores ( 32 Cadillacs ) handles these transitions deftly, portraying a PI who, carrying The Tibetan Book of the Dead with him at all times, is both larger than life and believable. How Dain and a young Cajun stripper end up deep in the bayous of Louisiana, pursued by those he'd been pursuing, and how, weaponless, they plan a showdown, provides a stunning climax, with a significant surprise still left to spring. With plenty of plot twists, violence and sex, Gores still makes this a somewhat lighthearted, race-through read--an updated, slightly self-reflective, comic detective story with a hero both hard-boiled and sensitive, who finally recovers his soul.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Eddie Dain is the dead man?dead inside, that is?after two gunmen blew away his wife and child, leaving him in his burning house. After years of rehab, Eddie reemerges as a shady expert in locating missing persons, hoping to stumble across the two gunmen. Gores writes a notch above the conventions of the genre here: formulaic but not cliched. The story turns aggressively stupid only during the climactic slaughter, when the bad guys are being dispatched in such colorful, novel ways that listeners probably won't notice how dumb they're acting. Plenty of Louisiana local color is a plus. Reader Lloyd Battista provides some nice, scary, voices for the bad guys but occasionally mispronounces words. Recommended for large popular collections.?John Hiett, Iowa City P.L.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Chivers Audio Books; Unabridged edition (October 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786299746
• ISBN-13: 978-0786299744
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,930,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, but far from his best, November 19, 2009

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Dead Man (Mass Market Paperback)

I got hooked years ago on Gores's DKA novels, about a firm of San Francisco skip-tracers and repo men. He's pretty much quit writing those -- possibly because almost anyone these days with access to the Internet can do skip-trace. This one is about Eddie Dain, a tall, skinny Cal Tech grad and computer genius (by 1993 standards) who, for some unexplained reason, goes into private investigation instead of heading for Silicon Valley. He treats it all as a game, him and his hacker skills against the rest of the world -- until his reluctance to drop a case results in his adored wife and small son being shotgunned to death, with Dain in the hospital for a year. Not surprisingly, he's a different man when he comes out. He wants revenge. And he's no longer skinny. But despite himself, even vengeance becomes a game in which he presents a face to the world that isn't really him. And as he goes on, he begins to question the point of it all. And he begins to realize, with the help of a new semi-love interest, that his wife wouldn't have wanted to be converted into an icon. The plot has some problems early on -- it's kind of hard to believe in Dain's motivations -- but the pace picks up nicely. I had problems, though, when the action moved to New Orleans and then to the back country of the Atchafalaya (which is less than thirty miles from me). He describes highway routes that don't exist -- couldn't geographically exist -- and he lays on the Cajun-ness waaaaaaaay too thick. Even in 1993, it hadn't been like that for some time, not among the younger generation. Not outside of a Justin Wilson routine. So while it's a pretty good story, the author really should have stuck to San Francisco.

5.0 out of 5 stars Addictive Revenge Novel, February 4, 2009

By 

Ciaran Cooke (Dublin , Republic of Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dead Man (Mass Market Paperback)

Joe Gores has become my new favourite author, even though he has been writing books since the late sixties. The words "Criminally Underrated" could have been invented for him!
In Dead Man, Eddie Dain is a private investigator good at finding people who don't want to be found.
When he tracks down someone for a gangster but continues to look into the case after he has been warned off, himself and his young family end up on the wrong end of shotguns wielded by two masked men.
Five years later and Dain (who has dropped his first name) is a man reborn. He has built up his broken body, has become emotionally distanced from the rest of the world and is intent on tracking down those responsible for ruining his life. To do this he must go back to his job as a PI working for the kind of shady underground sorts who might just connect him to the gunmen and those who set up the hit.

The climax of the novel takes place in the wilds of Louisiana where the sights of nature going about its deadly business mirrors Dain's own predicament....trapped deep in a swamp it's a matter of kill or be killed.

Gores has written a very involving book with a great central character, can Dain who has lost everything have his revenge and eventually connect with the world again?
The action when it hits is fast and brutal and the book moves along at a great pace to its memorable climax.

3.0 out of 5 stars Predictable in parts, too deep too hard too fast, July 2, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Dead Man (Mass Market Paperback)

Gores comes out with his usual style of mystery, facts, and suspense. Then swerves off into a tangent of overdone psychiatric evaluation of man and tragedy. The tale weaves onward in predictability, and what inner sights of the mind is offered, the reader must connect the meaning using references to literature and insight garnered elsewhere.

The character Dain is drawn well, from the beginning creation of his tortured existence finally melding into a person at peace within himself. The supporting character of Vangie appears from nowhere, has character developement outside of the pages, and leaves the reader with more questions than answers.

Overall, this last is the dagger through the heart seperating this book from the past excellences of Gore. Whereas his other novels twist, turn, weave, and hang side stories dangerously by themselves, having them drawn together into a final tapestry of understanding and clarity at the end, Dead Man leaves one hanging asking "Hey..wait a minute ! What about ____ ? "

Gores has done better.