Customer Reviews

The Vanished

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THE VANISHED (Priv. Invest-"Nameless"-San Francisco-Cont) - Ex
Pronzini, Bill - 2nd in series
Random House, 1973, US Hardcover - ISBN: 394481704

First Sentence: January.

Elaine Kavanaugh wants to hire a private investigator. Master Sergeant Roy Sands finished his 20-years in the military and they are engaged to get married. Now he has disappeared and Elaine wants to find out where he is. She doesn't have a photo, but does have a sketch. The investigation seems routine until the sketch is stolen and Elaine's life is threatened.

Although I've read many of Pronzini's more recent books, I'd never read the series from the beginning. From the very first, and now second, book, Pronzini's prodigious talent is apparent.

The plot is cleaver without being gimmicky; the sense of place is excellent, the dialogue crisp. It is also fascinating to see how much our lives have changed in 35 years. There are no cell phones, of course, but what really struck me is being able to call one day and get a seat on a plane to London and Germany the next day which no problem.

Don't think that makes the book seem dated as the story is so well structured it transcends any impact the passing of time has made.

If you've not yet read Pronzini's "Nameless" series, I can only ask: Why not?

This is the 2nd of the Nameless Detective novels, and it is still one of the best of the series. Roy Sands quits the service to return to California to marry Elaine Kavanaugh. A few hours after arriving, he disappears. Elaine hires Nameless to find Sands. Sands had sent a telegram to 3 of his army buddies from Eugene, Oregon. The only clue Nameless finds in Eugene is Sands' duffel bag abandoned in a Eugene hotel. The search leads Nameless to West Germany and a small village in Northern California. The excellent writing and sense of place are very strong here. This is an excellent novel by the master of suspense, Bill Pronzini.

In 1971, author Bill Pronzini was only 27 when he wrote The Snatch, building on a shorter and different version of the story that appeared in the May 1969 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine under the same title. With the publication of this book, one of detective fiction's great characters was born with full fledged power and authenticity. If you have not yet read the Nameless Detective novels by Mr. Pronzini, you have a major treat ahead of you. Many of these are now out-of-print, so be sure to check your library for holdings in near-by cities.

The Nameless Detective is referred to that way because Mr. Pronzini never supplies a name until late in the series, although he begins toying with the reader about this point in the fourth book in the series, Blowback. I won't reveal that name here.

Mr. Pronzini presents a world in which many men take evil actions to further selfish interests, and many women and children suffer because of that selfishness. The police and private investigators suffer along with the victims, for evil-doing has painful consequences for everyone. Mr. Pronzini's plots are complex, yet he provides plenty of clues to help you identify the evil-doer on your own. Despite the transparency of many plots, he successfully uses plot complications to keep the action interesting and fresh.

But the reason to read the books is because of the character development for the Nameless Detective. Nameless is a former police officer in San Francisco who collects pulp fiction about tough private detectives. Overcome by the evil he sees as a police officer and drawn to the complex imagery of the strong, silent hero who rights wrongs, Nameless tries to live that role as a private detective. But he has trouble getting clients, and operating as a one-man shop causes him to lead a lonely existence. In his personal life, his career keeps women at a distance. Like a medieval knight errant, he sticks to his vows and pursues doing the right thing . . . even when it doesn't pay. At the same time, he's very aware of art, culture and popular trends. And he doesn't like much of what he sees. At the same time, he's troubled by a hacking cough that cigarettes make worse . . . but doesn't really want to know what causes his phlegm to rise.

The books are also written in a more sophisticated version of the pulp fiction style, employing greater style through language and plot. The whole experience is like looking at an image in a series of mirrors that reflect into infinity.

These books are a must for those who love the noir style, and the modern fans of tough detectives with a heart of gold like Spenser . . . and can live without the wise cracks and repartee.

In The Vanished, the second book in the Nameless Detective series, Elaine Kavanaugh hires Nameless to find her fiance, Master Sergeant Roy Sands, who mysteriously disappeared a few weeks earlier after mustering out of the service in San Francisco to wed her and live in California. The last clues to his whereabouts are three wires he sent from Eugene, Oregon to repay his buddies for gambling debts incurred on the flight home from Germany. Nameless goes to Oregon, and only finds a cold trail . . . ending in a duffel bag left behind in a prepaid hotel room.

Suddenly, events turn even darker when someone breaks into Nameless's apartment to steal a drawing of Sands and both Elaine and he receive death threats over the telephone. Taking precautions to hide Elaine, Nameless takes the long polar flight through London to Germany from California and turns up an unexpected tale that opens up a new investigative path.

The unraveling of the mystery fills in from there with wisps of clues, rather than whole clues . . . and Nameless connects the dots to find Sands.

The story is both bold and subtle at the same time. The key mystery is out in the open from the beginning, and a careful reader will soon understand what might have happened in the broadest sense. The narrow sense of what happens will have to await the unfolding of the story . . . which makes the book hard to put down. I stayed up until past midnight to race to the end.

Although the plot is not as complex and delicious as in The Snatch, The Vanished actually fits better with the Nameless character because there is more evil and evil-doing in this story to deal with. Anyone who reads this story will find their heart seared by the misdeeds . . . and their ugly consequences. Although he has done his duty in the end, Nameless pays a high emotional price for carrying on. And yet he does.

After you recover from this hard-hitting story, think about where in your life others trust you . . . and what you must do to earn and maintain that trust and avoid causing harm to others.

Our anti-hero (the Nameless Detective) in the first sequel (of what is now a thirty-four book series) is a man of amazing tenacity and grit. He's kind of like John Wayne meets Columbo. It's only three months from the first book where he took twenty-seven stitches to his 'belly' from a knife wound, and he's running around the West Coast and West Germany with no ill effects. Normally this wouldn't be a problems except that our man is in his forties and suffering from respiratory distress from too much smoking. In this book he gets knocked over a few times and has a massive drag out fight with a moose of a farm hand (who has fists like mallets).

The one thing that will always destroy the credibility of these stories, no matter how 'noir' they are, is the idea that anyone can take that kind of beating and not have to spend two weeks in a hospital. Anyone who has ever been in a fight (bare fisted) and been hit solidly in the face or head knows that your lucky if you only come out with a concussion.

Keeping in mind that Pronzini was twenty-nine when he wrote this story, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but he doesn't know what it's like to be forty. The story itself is interested and well played out, except that by having him fall in love with the sister of one of his suspects almost demands that he be the killer. This is 'noir' after all.

He does a good job at the atmospherics and descriptions (which have to been too detailed and overblown) for this type of story. If Nameless has called his client sweetheart or angel it would have been perfectly ok. The woman all need a man to make them whole and protect them from harm (or they're helpful down on their luck hookers) and all the men are 'two-fisted' even the bad ones.

I'm looking forward to see how Pronzini's grows his characters in the future (like McBain did with the men of the 87th precinct) or if he'll just become a hack like the guys who wrote the 'pulp detective fiction' that his character likes to collect.

Zeb Kantrowitz

Not expecting much after picking it up at a yard sale (the first page intrigued me), I was pleasantly surprised with "The Vanished." It was like stepping back into 1973 along with the nameless private detective Bill Pronzini has featured in many similar novels. The story unfolds in much the same way I would imagine the average missing person investigation might -- slowly and methodically. There are many frustrating dead ends for our plodding hero, with a strange, almost innocent romance thrown into the works. Pronzini dutifully takes us to the end before divulging the secret behind the missing man, and I found the narrative mildly entertaining just for the feel of northern California and the American military world in Germany in the early 1970s.