Skip tracer Henry Swann cares little about anything but money. When a beautiful Upper East Side woman shows up in his office and hires him to find her missing husband, Harry Janus, he smiles and takes the cash.
--This text refers to the
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Despite a strong beginning, Salzberg's debut takes too many wrong turns to satisfy. Henry Swann, a throwback to the 1950s PI, subsists on a bleak if steady diet of repo work until Sally Janus, an attractive, well-to-do woman, shows up at his seedy upper Manhattan office and asks him to find her missing husband, Harry. The lucrative assignment proves to be short-lived as Harry's corpse turns up in a sleazy local hotel, the victim of an apparent robbery. When Sally hires Swann again to find her husband's killer, the investigator embarks on a meandering and less-than-plausible international trek that takes him to Mexico and Germany in search of a conspiracy possibly connected with the Peking Man fossils. The contrast between the compelling and gritty opening scenes and the later tepid action sequences suggests Salzberg would be better served by focusing on the former in future books. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dos Caminos,
By
This review is from: Swann's Last Song (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (Hardcover)
I don't want to slip into book review cadence here because this isn't a usual kind of book. Very funny. Very noir. Excellent read. Beautifully written and structured, too. Between the lines, though, "Swann" is that rare item: a wry, entertaining and serious novel about a guy who terrifyingly runs up against his own limits. Definitely worth your time.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A new and irresistible hard-boiled detective,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Swann's Last Song (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (Hardcover)
I have modified my original enthusiastic reaction to the hardcover edition of "Swann's Last Song" due to a new final chapter in the paperback version that makes an already terrific novel even better.
To any list of idiosyncratic private eyes that we find irresistible, we can now add Henry Swann. Swann calls himself a "skip chaser" -- he doesn't have a PI license or much of an office, and if he told people he was a private eye, there'd be too many expectations to meet. He is also the narrator of this fast-paced, country-hopping, roller coaster ride of a noir detective story, and that important fact differentiates him from otherwise comparable gumshoes such as Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, whose stories are told in the third person. And Swann's distinctive voice is an inspired creation. It is a remarkably versatile instrument through which we come to care about this tightly guarded, multilayered figure. It seamlessly blends smart and smartass, wise and wily, literate and demotic, supple and unyielding, upscale and coarse. One might guess from Swann's allusions that he's an impressively informed autodidact, but if anyone told him that, he'd blow him off with a dismissive wisecrack; and one might still sense that beneath the sparkling (and sometimes very funny) riffs and the street-smart cynicism there may hide a defrocked romantic. Salzberg's novel also plays (amusingly) with and (fascinatingly) against the abiding conventions of the detective story, which assumed -- in a coherent world, where motives drive acts -- that by connecting the dots (or facts), however baffling or apparently inconsistent they sometimes are, the hero (or anti-hero) will unravel the crime and restore order (however disfigured) to that little nook of the world. In its hardback incarnation, "Swann's Last Song" was nominated for a Shamus Award (the prize recognizing outstanding achievement in private eye fiction). And this new paperback edition is even stronger because it includes the "lost" final chapter that was omitted from the original (along with a charming essay by the author explaining its omission). "Swann's Last Song" is a novel to wolf down. It is likely to leave you feeling both satisfied and hungry for more. Fortunately, there will be more: Charles Salzberg's new Henry Swann novel is scheduled for publication in the Fall of 2012.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
America's No. 1 Detective Agency,
This review is from: Swann's Last Song (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (Hardcover)
SWANN'S LAST SONG is a wonderful book and has the feel of Hitchcock. Salzberg has created a delightfully appealing character in Swann, and I found myself eager to turn the page but not wanting it to end - the same way I feel about the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. The story is action packed while being remarkably charming. I can't wait to read what case Swann is on next.
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