Customer Reviews

Mexican Tree Duck

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

James Crumley's "The Last Good Kiss" (1978) and "The Wrong Case" (1975) are two of the best hardboiled detective fiction novels ever written. With "The Mexican Tree Duck," Crumley brings back Private Investigator C.W. Sughrue from "Kiss." Alas, the results are not nearly as satisfying. Crumley is quite adept at creating effective moments. For example, there is a flashback here to Sughrue's service in the Vietnam War in which an officer is killed by a poisonous snake that I will not soon forget. There are numerous such moments in this book, but not enough to make up for a story that stretches credibility to the breaking point. The novel also lacks an effective villian, and many of Sughrue's foes here are the type faceless minions you'd expect in a James Bond movie.

Overall, "The Mexican Tree Duck" is not a bad novel. Crumley at his worst is still a literary force who can put to shame a lot of the lightweights writing mystery novels these days. But I wouldn't recommend this as a first Crumley novel. Read one of his classics and get familiar with his unique genius first.

The first Crumley book I read was "the last good kiss" I have been hooked on crumley ever since. He is a chandlerisc writter who deftly out chandlers chandler. His black crime writting picks up in the 1970's where chandler left off in the fifties. What "the last good kiss" lacked in plotting focus came together completely in "the tree duck". a person simply has to love a guy whose cast of characters include :a drunk bull dog, a juke box with hank snow, twin fish peddlers who also have a sideline in gun running, and a filthy speed freak biker with a good heart and better woman.

Okay, I gave you one credential. I served with E Recon 1/7th Cavalry. Crumley's a Nam vet too and in "One to Count Cadence" wrote one of the earliest novels that began to address that experience directly.

Here in "Mexican Tree Duck" he creates the emotional landscape that is shared by many of us who "also served."

Detective fiction has a subgenre that I might call "My Best Friend did it." Here that genre is mined to create the sense of abandonment and betrayal that many who served in Vietnam are ultimately heir to.

My favorite scene is that of Serita's rescue.

All the now old farts get it together and do exactly the tacticaly correct thing to do for what turns out, (for them), to be the inevitably wrong reason. Worse they fail to protect their unprotected flank and CW loses his love.

Doing what your supposed to and getting screwed for it....

Well every Nam vet I know understands that.

On top of that, (the not quite Masters in English is now speaking), what a technically proficient read!

Crumley knows how to use this genre and spin his good tale. He has slipped in other books, but this was not one of them, and I will still read them every one.

...but, I'll have to agree with some of the other reviews. This isn't his best. But I'll take a subpar novel by James Crumley, over some of the other authors anyday. Still worth while to see what Sughrue is up to!!!

I'd enjoyed Dancing Bear and after about 50-75 pages of Mexican Tree Duck was ready to annoint Crumley the most audacious talent on the crime-writing scene. The early chapters introduce a cast of characters so promising that it only makes my disappointment with the rest of the book that much more keen. Essentially, the story dissipates into an uninvolving and sometimes confusing tale of drugs, guns, and money.

C.W. Sughrue is a drunken, dope addict, washed up private detective,and this guy is no Spencer or Elvis Cole. But, just one of the most exciting P.I.s to come out of the mind of a writer. I thought I had read all the really good mystery/thriller authors, I was wrong, James Crumley is one of the best(top five in my book). This book is one you hate to put down and you look forward to the next one by Crumley. This book is a double thumbs up, must read. Be warned it is raw, hard driving, dope dealing, sexy, and outstanding.

I absolutely loved two of Crumley's works: The Last Good Kiss and Dancing Bear.

Something went wrong on this outing. Shugrue lost his personality (he had lots of depth in The Last Good Kiss), the plot grew Byzantine, the villians were cartoonish and way over the top, as was the climax.

Bordersnakes is a little better. Skip this book!

I hate to say this, but I had a hard time with this Crumley book -- too much coke, too many Vietnam references, and too many undeveloped characters to be as solid as "The Last Good Kiss."

Longtime readers of my comments may remember the previous Crumley that I read, The Muddy Fork and Other Tales, which was a collection of essays, interview, short stories, and unfinished novels. In my comments, I said that I would prefer the finished work. Lo and behold, here is one of those unfinished novels present and complete.

C.W. Sughrue from The Last Good Kiss is back, and hasn't really changed. That's part of the problem with PI and detective novels. In most novels, the lead character is expected to change-- it's one of those things they teach you in writing workshops. In fact, the Star Trek folks have managed to pin it down to two words: character arc. While it is horribly abused in Star Trek (it would probably make a great drinking game--first, identify the character who will "change" before the end of the episode, and then identify the "change." I put change in quotes, because in Star Trek the arc is only good for one episode--by the time the next episode comes around, the character seems to have forgotten their life changing episode. [Okay, I'm not being fair, there are exceptions.]), it is a "formula" that much great fiction follows--except the mystery genre (oh, all right, I'm pontificating. I know SF and romance has a tradition of not following it either, but I'm working a different argument at the moment.). I admire the work of Rex Stout, but it isn't character growth that brings me back. Nero and Archie are roughly the same in a book that Stout wrote in the 50s as they are in the 70s. Just as in some SF, where the readers return time and again to the same "world" (say, McCaffrey's Pern), readers return to the characters of Holmes, Miss Marple, and Perry Mason. When mystery writers stray from this prediliction, as James Ellroy did in The Black Dahlia and as Crumley did in The Last Good Kiss, the result is often quite pleasurable and breathtaking.

So it is with trepidation that I approached a novel in which Sughrue takes the stage once again. My fear proved true: this isn't a great novel like The Last Good Kiss. It's not bad, but it ain't got that same sort of swing. Sughrue continues his worldly self-destruction, and Crumley mixes in some wonderful Vietnam vet knowledge, but the centre does not hold. Crumely is still a wonderful writer, and while the plot may not be sliced bread, some of the descriptions are certainly tasty enough to be eaten and enjoyed.

Because the Wrong Case's better (?