Customer Reviews

Schemers: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Novels)

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I love all of the Nameless books and they just seem to be getting better. At first I wasn't sure if I would like the additon of the others in his office, but now I see that they are a good part of the stories. If you haven't read any of Pronzini's Nameless books, I would recommend that you find the older ones and start at the beginning of his story.

Rare detective fiction is missing. To solve the crime, Nameless has to also deal with muder in a locked room. Something about the murder just doesn't ring true. Jake Runyon investigates a family facing threats. But why? Runyon has to delve into the past. Tamara finds a man who makes her happy. Is he everything that he seems? The Nameless series has run for more than thirty years by allowing characters to grow and change. Enjoy.

In Bill Pronzini's "Schemers," Nameless and the staff of his San Francisco-based private investigation agency are looking into two very different mysteries. One involves Cliff and Damon Henderson, two brothers in their thirties who are being stalked by a psychopath with an unknown agenda. The perp has already damaged their personal property and beaten Damon with a tire iron. The Hendersons have no idea why they are being targeted. Since the police have not been able to help them, they turn to Nameless, hoping that he can find their "faceless enemy" before he escalates his attacks.

The other puzzle is brought to Nameless's attention by his former friend, Barney Rivera, a slimy character who is the chief claims adjuster for an insurance company. He hires Nameless to look into the theft of eight vintage first-edition mysteries, worth half a million dollars, from the collection of sixty-seven year old Gregory Pollexfen. Pollexfen, who is unhappily married to a much younger woman, alleges that the items were taken from a secure library to which no none is ever admitted without his being there. Barney dares Nameless to solve this "locked room" puzzle, and even agrees to sweeten the pot with a hefty bonus if he succeeds.

"Schemers" is an engrossing tale of underhanded, desperate, and mentally ill people who wreak havoc on both the innocent and guilty alike. Working with Nameless are twenty-six year old Tamara Corbin, a computer expert and "human dynamo," and Jake Runyon, a former Seattle cop whose heart was broken when beloved second wife, Colleen, passed away. While Bill's private life has been blessedly uneventful of late, Tamara is all excited about her new beau, Lucas Zeller, and Jake is slowly getting closer to Bryn Darby, a woman who withdrew from society after a stroke left her face partially paralyzed. Jake's relationship with Bryn is poignant and affecting. They are "lonely, damaged creatures, blinking in the light, finding understanding and acceptance in each other and taking solace from it."

The villains are stock characters with the usual dysfunctional personalities, and some of the plot elements are a bit hackneyed and predictable. Still, "Schemers" is energized by Pronzini's brisk, fluid, and fast-paced writing style. The dialogue is lively, and Nameless, Tamara, and Runyon are methodical and tenacious in their quest for answers. Readers who have followed Nameless and his crew over the years may find Tamara's and Jake's personal lives more interesting than the cases that they are investigating. By the time the dust settles, one thing is clear: Nothing and no one should be taken at face value. Manipulative and cruel people can do a great deal of harm, and the vulnerable among us would do well to be on their guard.

"The Holmesian dictum. If you eliminate the impossible, then whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." I liked this well-written detective novel because it kept me guessing.

I love the new covers of the "Nameless" Detective novels by Bill Pronzini. They're mocked up to look like file folders and make it simple to recognize these books at a glance.

I've been reading this series since The Snatch came out in the 1970s. In that time, Nameless has gone through a lot of changes. We've even learned his first name: Bill. But I'll always think of him as Nameless.

I'd read in the beginning that the author wanted to strip down the private detective motif down so much that the character had no name and the only way he was recognized was through his work. In the beginning, I thought that was pretty cool. Still do. But I like the way Nameless has gone from being a single act to an ensemble group and now has a family life.

Lately, Pronzini has divided up the legwork in Nameless's cases. He's been joined by Tamara Corbin, the agency's computer guru, and Jake Runyon, an ex-Seattle cop who's dealing with personal trauma from losing his wife to cancer. When Tamara first started edging into the books as a viewpoint character, I wasn't too sure about how I liked the idea. Then I got used to it and now I see it as a plus in the series.

The opening prologue of the book instantly guarantees the reader's attention. I couldn't think of a more brutal thing to kick off an attack on a family, but it's there. Nameless takes the case on and hands it over to Runyon. All of them are aware that a killer is waiting out in the shadows, one that isn't going to hesitate to kill when he's ready.

The second mystery is an old school locked room. I loved those kinds of stories when I was a kid. The scenario gets bumped up and shot full of steroids when the story involves a collector of Golden Age mysteries. I loved all the name-dropping that went on during the conversations. I couldn't help ticking off the books and authors I'd read. Nameless is an avid collector of pulp magazines, a medium I also love.

As always, Pronzini keeps his mysteries moving, dodging back and forth between cases as well as through the investigations and the private lives of his investigators.

I'd figured out most of the locked room mystery by the time I reached the final few pages, but it was gratifying to see that I was right about most of it. There were still a few twists I hadn't caught. The story with Runyon and the Hendersons was more suspenseful, more hardboiled, but it kept me flipping pages in anticipation. Overall, this was a solid entry into this long-lived series.

This Nameless Detective novel (although his name "Bill" is out there now) is very good, but try the earlier novels if you want more Nameless and less characters. I think Pronzini likes to 'juggle' each character in and out of his latest series of books and as I have said before, it does not work as well as went he has to drive one character (the old Nameless) into and out of trouble. Pronzini uses his own love of the old pulp fiction magazines and novels well here, and his character of Jake Runyon is good enough to have his own series without the side plot lines. A good read. I obviously really enjoy the Pronzini books, but I think the earlier, more focused ones were better. His other (non-Nameless) novels are also very well written.

Back in 1969 Bill Pronzini wrote a short story featuring a San Francisco private eye whose name we were never given. Forty years and 35 novels later, he is still in San Francisco and still nameless, except for his first name, which leaked out several books ago and appears about once or twice per novel now.

Pronzini is not as well known as some of his mystery colleagues who dominate the bestseller lists. But for those of us who write mysteries and love mysteries, we know that Pronzini is a must read. He is one of the genre's greatest practitioners. In total, he has written over 60 novels and last year was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. Pronzini richly deserved the honor.

SCHEMERS, the latest entry in the Nameless series, will not disappoint either longtime fans or new readers. In it, Nameless encounters the puzzle that writers have enjoyed playing with for decades: the locked door mystery. It is a locked door mystery about mysteries in which eight first-edition mystery novels have been stolen from a rich man's library and the insurance claim for them is a half-million dollars. The insurance company calls in Nameless to investigate. But the library is double locked, and the key is always with the owner. Suspects soon appear.

When the series started, Pronzini was obviously paying homage to the true grand master, Dashiell Hammett, who also wrote a series about a nameless San Francisco private eye, the Continental Op. But the Op did not occupy 35 books. What is really amazing is that Pronzini managed to keep Nameless's moniker hidden for so many books. Try writing a first person novel without using a name if you think that is easy. And if you do not closely read SCHEMERS, you will still miss his name.

But as time has gone by, Nameless has evolved to become the Everyman. He has his own place among the great fictional detectives and has aged in real time. Now he is semi-retired and has a young field operative, Jake Runyon, as well as a computer wizard, Tamara, to run his agency.

Pronzini has injected life and youth into the series, and now every Nameless novel actually brings us two investigations, since Nameless and Jake work separate cases.

In SCHEMERS, Jake is dealing with a mysterious stalker who is menacing two successful brothers. The stalker begins by desecrating the grave and remains of their father with acid, leaving behind the sign: "This is just the beginning." And things get worse as their property is attacked with acid, and one brother is beaten and sent to the hospital. Jake must solve the case before somebody gets killed.

Any novel by Pronzini is a great read. But the genius of this series is that it is character driven. You like these people and want to read about them. The series deals with dark matters without being dark. Pronzini is excellent at writing noir, but you don't find much of it in the Nameless books. His noir work is in his other novels, such as last year's THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE.

Many years ago, early in my study of the genre, I learned that hard-boiled novels are ones in which the bodies pile up as the pages fly by. By that standard, SCHEMERS is not particularly hard-boiled. Nor are the Nameless stories especially violent by today's standards. Nameless says at one point: "I'm not big on guns, even though --- or maybe because --- I own one and have had occasion to use it more than once...The hunter gene was left out of me. I like blood sports even less than guns."

But what you do get in abundance is a well-plotted mystery with plenty of clues and false leads. As Nameless says of his locked room case: "There was nothing to catch hold of, to follow through to a definite conclusion. One big confusing, tangle of possibilities, half truths, lies, secrets."

This makes SCHEMERS and all the Nameless novels fun to read. The reader gets to follow along with the detectives, glancing over their shoulder as they run their investigation step by step. And unlike other detective stories, our hero does not have to get knocked on the head and the story does not have to climax in a gun battle. Instead there will be a point where the old reliables --- method, opportunity and motive --- come into play and the natural order is restored, if slightly altered.

Nameless --- you probably guessed by now you are not getting his name out of me --- faces the issue of the passing of time and its impact upon him. He says: "There were times when the chaotic, permissive new world we lived in seemed a little too much for a man of my old-school sensibilities. Inexplicable, too, in so many ways. Not to mention infuriating and depressing when the larger issues --- insupportable wars, terrorism, rampant political chicanery, global warming, vicious anti-gay and anti-immigrant sentiments --- came into play. It worried me sometimes, how out of touch and inadequate the modern world made me feel. Born a generation too late, past my prime, and too old and set in my ways to make the necessary adaptations to connect with the ever-growing mess of changes and challenges."

Writing like this is the final reason why this is one of the greatest mystery series of all time. At the end of each Nameless story, you find yourself looking forward to the next adventure. Let's hope there are many more. SCHEMERS is a great introduction to the work of Bill Pronzini. But a warning: read it and you will want to get your hands on all 34 previous Nameless novels.

A couple of unrelated cases walked in the door of the agency as the Nameless Detective sat at his desk one Monday morning. He wasn't even supposed to be there, now that he is semi-retired and taking Mondays off. The first case involved two brothers from a little town north of San Francisco who were being stalked by an unknown person for no apparent reason. The other was an assignment from an insurance company on a claim for the theft of eight valuable first edition mysteries, ranging from Conan Doyle to Hammett.

Jake Runyon took over the stalking case, doggedly following his nose from obscure clue to even more obtuse lead. Pure detective work, slow but sure. Far more fascinating is the insurance claim which Nameless pursues. It is worthy of a Conan Doyle or Poe and ultimately illustrates Sherlock Holmes' observation that if you eliminate the impossible, what remains is the most likely.

Written with the smoothness exhibited in the preceding volumes in the series, "Schemers" is in keeping with the classic tradition of whodunits. As always, Nameless gives the reader something to think about.

Recommended.

"He who plots to do evil
Will be called a schemer." -- Proverbs 24:8

The two main plot lines in Schemers are driven by vengeful characters who could have just stepped out of the Old Testament. Their schemes are puzzling even to those who are affected by them. What is the ultimate plan? A lot of the suspense in this book is trying to anticipate what the schemers plan to do.

If you are a fan of detective fiction (both novels and short stories), you'll appreciate this book much more than if you just read the surface story. Author Bill Pronzini has drawn deep into the heritage of detective fiction to adapt classic tales into a modern-day setting. One story line involves not one, but two, locked-room mysteries. The other story line evokes the many stories of a hidden avenger who wants his victims to know that they are being hunted before dispatching them.

The noir tone of the book is best captured in two subplots that aren't related to the main story lines -- Tamara finds a man whom she enjoys making love to and Bryn and Jake take a look at what they might mean to one another. These are so beautifully done it's worth reading the book just to enjoy them. Either one would be a prize-winning short story.

The noir tone is best captured in the main plot lines by the extreme feelings that the characters have for one another, and don't make much of an attempt to cover up.

The puzzles are decent ones, but they aren't intended to confuse you so much as amuse you. Enjoy them!

So what's it all about? Nameless normally doesn't work on Mondays, but he's pressed into covering for Tamara and receives a summons from an old "friend" he isn't sure he wants to see. With the prospect of a fat bonus, he takes on a case of locating eight missing rare books for the insurance company of a monomaniacal collector. Jake's heart is moved by the story of two brothers who are being stalked by a man who has turned violent, and Nameless gives him the case.

In the first mystery, all the characters hate one another and blame one another. Sorting out the reasons for all that hate turn out to be critical to solving the mystery. In the second mystery, there's a difference between what the public reputation is and the reality. Jake has to descend into the reality to find the stalker.

I didn't start the book until after one a.m. and I couldn't put it down. I was up until well past three thirty with a huge smile on my face.

Take it from me. Start earlier in the evening than I did.