Spook: A Nameless Detective Novel [Hardcover]

Bill Pronzini (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 15, 2002 | Series: Pronzini, Bill

Roll out the red carpet. Uncap a bottle of decent beer. Nameless is back, and Bill Pronzini's much-praised Bleeders did not conclude a series that Booklist calls "a stunning and unique achievement in crime fiction" and "one of the greatest-ever detective series." Instead, in Spook, the pivotal new twenty-eighth novel in the remarkably successful award-winning Nameless series, Pronzini, working at the top of his form, takes his seasoned private-eye hero to a new phase of a still-evolving thirty-year career. Shaken after a hair's-breadth escape from death, Nameless has made changes in his professional life, but he's not put himself out to pasture. Again he enters San Francisco's shadowy underworld, this time in a search for the identity of a gentle, mentally disturbed homeless man who has been found dead in an alley doorway. Clues are few, but eventually they bring the Nameless Detective to the small California town that drove the nameless victim tragically to murder and madness.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Deaths among the homeless don't usually provoke background probes. But when a transient known as Spook (because "he had ghosts living inside his head") is shot outside the offices of a San Francisco film-industry supplier, employees there want to know why. "He didn't have a mean bone in his body," one staffer assures Bill Pronzini's Nameless Detective in Spook. So was this just the random slaying of a street crazy, or had someone from Spook's unknown past--maybe Dot or Luke, the apparitions he was always jabbering to--finally come gunning for him?

In Nameless' 28th novel-length outing, but his first since the pivotal Bleeders (in which he almost hung up his gumshoes for good), Pronzini's classically wrought sleuth is preparing for semiretirement, turning over responsibilities to his young PI partner, Tamara Corbin. He's also breaking in a new investigator, reserved ex-cop and widower Jake Runyon, to whom he hands off the identity search--little knowing how quickly that case will turn ugly, linking the "gentle, friendly" Spook to the murder of another homeless man and a long-ago triple homicide in the California Sierras. Meanwhile, Nameless finishes up a high-profile dig into questionable practices among city employees. This secondary plot lacks the intrigue of Runyon's task; however, both investigations generate action, including a hostage situation and a not-so-merry chase during a Christmas benefit. More than two decades after this series' initial installment, The Snatch, Nameless's assignments have become less conventional, and he's been mellowed by age, marriage, and too much death. Yet, even at age 61, he's more vital than many newer, less deservedly cynical competitors. --J. Kingston Pierce

From Publishers Weekly

Hints of the Nameless Detective's death or forced retirement in his last book, Bleeders (2002), turn out to be premature. (He isn't all that nameless, either-everyone calls him Bill. Could his last name be an Italian one ending in "ini"?) Nameless is slowing down, though, while the central plot of this 28th book in the honored series is one or two twists short of exciting. Hired by a San Francisco filmmaker to discover the identity of a gentle, spook-haunted homeless man shot to death in the production company's doorway where he camped out at night, Nameless spends far too many pages doing just that and far too few offering alternative possibilities for the murder other than the glaringly obvious one: realistic, maybe, but certainly not riveting. Perhaps building a foundation for a series without Nameless, who talks often about "semi-retirement" as he approaches 60, Pronzini gives his hero's young partner, Tamara Corbin, more to do this time out. Unfortunately, it mostly involves being nasty to her family and associates after hitting a speed bump in the road of love. A new addition to the agency staff, Jake Runyon, a seasoned Seattle investigator trying to connect with a lost son, is more appealing here. Three-time Shamus Award-winner Pronzini can still capture the sleazy underside of San Francisco's glitz as quickly and as well as anyone, so, Nameless lives-at least for one more book.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (December 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786710861
• ISBN-13: 978-0786710867
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #955,810 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Nameless Detective Acquires a New Op, September 16, 2003

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 110,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Spook: A Nameless Detective Novel (Hardcover)

Seldom does a wonderful series like that of the Nameless Detective suddenly add an exciting character who makes you anxious for the next book. If you've liked any of the books in this series, you must read this one . . . because it is the beginning of much potential for the future.

Nameless is back (and called "Bill"). He's in the process of moving towards retirement . . . beginning with semi-retirement. To facilitate the changes, he's taken his former assistant, Tamara, as his partner. They need to hire a new operative to help handle the street work that Nameless did in the past. After considering two potential men, Tamara insists that they hire Jake Runyon, a silent-as-the-grave ex-cop, ex-detective who looks like he's just lost his last friend.

Jake turns out to be the kind of dandy character that Raymond Chandler would have been glad to write about. He loves the grime of the streets and the challenge of the chase. He's smart, tough, focused and self-contained. But he hurts, and his work is his therapy. You'll enjoy learning about him.

The action in the book centers on the murder of a street person named Spook who talks to ghosts. I especially enjoyed the way that several people contributed to identifying Spook. It's imaginative problem solving at its best.

Each of the detectives has personal issues that develop in interesting ways. Bill is having trouble deciding how to wind down his work and deal with his need to be a lone wolf. Tamara is shaken to the core when her boyfriend decides to move to Philadelphia and proposes marriage. Jake is looking to make a connection with his estranged son while grieving for his lost love.

I don't want to say any more because the prose and story line are so smooth and balanced. You should be able to enjoy the development without interruption from me.

Fans of Marcia Muller (Mr. Pronzini's wife) will be delighted to see that Bill and Sharon McCone end up working together on a case. It's neat!

After you finish this wonderful novel, I suggest that you think about what you will regret if you don't change your ways. How can you begin making the necessary changes?

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Nameless One Is Winding Down?, May 28, 2007

By 

Russ Heitz (Sarasota, Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spook: A Nameless Detective Novel (Hardcover)

The Nameless Detective is clearly starting to feel his age in this one. The gritty, rundown parts of the city are starting to depress him. So are the seedy and hopeless people he often has to deal with. This particular case involves the senseless and brutal murder of a homeless man named Spook. But instead of handling the case himself, as he has done for many years, Nameless has now enlisted the help of two assistants.

One of his helpers is an assertive and streetwise black woman named Tamara who has become a full partner in Nameless's detective agency. In keeping with Tamara's promotion, several sections of the book are now seen through Tamara's eyes exclusively. Nameless has also hired an assistant named Jake Runyon, whose personal problems are reminiscent of the problems that Nameless himself has experienced in the past. Runyon, too, now has several sections of the book turned over to him.

This is a somewhat startling change from previous Nameless novels, which were told through a first-person narrator who refused to reveal his own name. That meant everything that happened in previous novels was seen through the eyes and mind of this anonymous detective. Not so with this one.

Like his other Nameless novels, however, Pronzini's hand is still the guiding force behind this long-lived series. And once again, he has filled the story with an interesting assortment of colorful characters with names like Pinkeye, Big Dog, and Lightfoot. He also includes a black classical cellist named Horace. And speaking of names, one of the surprises in this story is that Pronzini finally, subtly, and quietly reveals the name of Nameless.

Typical of Pronzini's other novels, Spook has a number of interesting subplots that always add unexpected twists and turns to the story. One of the subplots in Spook includes both Nameless and another P.I. named Sharon McCone. What's interesting is that Sharon McCone is the lead character in another popular detective series, this one written by Pronzini's own real-life wife, Marcia Muller. So in this instance we have two fictional characters from two different P.I. series, and they're both working together on the same fictional case. It's kind of like having the Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy working together to solve a bank heist.

Pronzini is clearly one of the old-time masters of the hard-boiled P.I. genre. All of his characters are exceptionally well drawn, real, and true-to-life. His descriptions are brief, stark, and easy to visualize. And his well-structured, solid, and suspenseful framework will keep you turning the pages, long after you should have turned out the light.

The saddest part of Spook is the realization that an excellent series is coming to an end. Don't miss this one. It's still Pronzini at his best.

Russ Heitz

www.russheitz.com

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Polished and humane entry in the quality series, June 18, 2004

By 

F. J. Harvey "Cricket ,country music and a go... (Birmingham England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spook: A Nameless Detective Novel (Hardcover)

Bill Pronzini has in the Nameless Detective created a fihure who unlike many similar series protagonists ages as the series progresses and in this book he is 61 years old and on the verge of semi-retirement .To this end he and his streetwise young black partner Tamara engage another operative ,the troubled Jake Runyon .Runyan is still in a state of depression following the death through cancer of his second wife and has returned to San Francisco to try and rebuild a relationship with his gay son from whom he is estranged .
The man case concerns the death of a harmless street person ,Spook ,who is murdered in the entryway to a low rent film company whose proproetor engages the agency to trace his identity .
The bulk of the investigative work is undertaken by Runyan who , after encounters with the more violent and psychotic aspects of the homeless world ,in thr form of the vicious " Big Dog " traces the origins of the killing to an incident some 20 years previously in which 3 people were gunnned down in a remote Clifornia town .This not only points up the true identity of the deceased Spook but enables his slayer to be traced .
This is polished and proficient in its unravelling but is not the only starnd to the book -there is a sub -plot which sees Nameless co-operating with Sharon McCone ( a creation of the authors wife ,Marcia Muller ) in acase exposing City corruption .
Much of the book is taken up with the personal problems of Tamara whose relationship with cellist boyfriend Horace is in trouble ,and with Runyan' s situation as he tries to rebuild his life
There is an air of transition hanging over the book and it seems to be that Pronzini is about to retire his character and maybe start a new series cenred on Tamara and Jake

Its a mellow and thoughtful book shot through with realistic compasssion and seems to point the way to a new development in the career of its prolific and reliable author

Satisfying as a mystery and a well wrought and compassionate study of lives in transition