While I Disappear (Prime Crime Mysteries) [Paperback]

Edward Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 2005 | Series: Prime Crime Mysteries

Clea's Moon was the most talked-about mystery debut of the year. This one's even better.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Former big-city newspaper editor Wright's stellar second John Ray Horn novel (after 2003's Clea's Moon, which won the C.W.A.'s Debut Dagger Award) legitimately merits comparison to the work of James Ellroy. A disgraced former movie cowboy and ex-con, Horn walks the mean streets of post-WWII Los Angeles in search of the brutal killer who snuffed out the life of Rose Galen, a faded leading lady who co-starred in one of Horn's films. A shameful secret from the victim's past forces Horn to challenge the official theory of the crime-that the killing was a random act. Aided by his current boss (and former faithful movie sidekick) Joseph Mad Crow, Horn pounds the pavement and reaches out to old friends to identify the source of Galen's guilty conscience. Wright does a superb job of integrating a fair-play whodunit plot into a hard-boiled setting rife with personal and official corruption. He also manages to invest bit players-such as a lonely old fellow boarder of Galen's at the down-and-out hotel where she died-with humanity and dignity that provide a striking and dramatic counterpoint to the warped inner lives of some Hollywood notables. Wright's narrative gifts mark the arrival of a significant new noir voice who hopefully has many more Horn stories in him.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* John Ray Horn was a B-movie western star before World War II; now it's the late 1940s, and he works as a debt collector for his best friend, casino owner Joseph Mad Crow, who once played Horn's Indian sidekick. Blacklisted from Hollywood for beating up a studio exec, Horn can't quite shake his movieland roots. This time the past resurfaces in the form of Horn's onetime leading lady, Rose Galen, who has fallen on hard times herself. Horn hopes to help her back on her feet, but before he has a chance, she is strangled in her bed. This second installment in Wright's series (following Clea's Moon, 2003) once again makes superb use of a most evocative landscape: Hollywood in the late 1940s, still the studio era but with the winds of change beginning to freshen. As Horn investigates Rose's death, he is swept back to the silent-film era--and to one particularly lavish party that somehow holds the clue to the crime. Horn is an immensely likable character--Roy Rogers as a noir hero--and the Sunset Boulevard atmospherics here are irresistible. But Wright's series--and this novel in particular--is not just another costume-heavy tribute to Hollywood's golden age. Wright's characters evoke an era, but they also feel pain, the timeless kind, and their problems don't go away when the credits roll. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Berkley (May 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425199592
• ISBN-13: 978-0425199596
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,423,863 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Edward Wright grew up in Arkansas and went to school in Tennessee and Illinois. He has been an officer in the U.S. Navy and an editor at the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. His noir-flavored mysteries featuring John Ray Horn -- "Clea's Moon," "While I Disappear" (U.K. title: "The Silver Face"), and "Red Sky Lament" -- set in Los Angeles during the 1940s, have won the Shamus Award in the U.S. and the Debut Dagger and Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award in the U.K. His first non-series book, "Damnation Falls," a contemporary mystery-thriller set in small-town Tennessee, won the Barry Award. His latest novel, "From Blood," was named one of the best mysteries of the year by the Financial Times of London, and a U.S. edition is due in 2012. Although now a Californian, he retains a Southerner's love of barbecue and bluegrass music. He and his wife, Cathy, live in the Los Angeles area. www.edwardwrightbooks.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great second book., September 1, 2005

By 

L. J. Roberts (Oakland, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: While I Disappear (Hardcover)

Wright has created a wonderful, atmospheric series with an interesting protagonist. Horn definitely has a past for which he is still paying. He is also very human, feeling guilt for his own past, knowing he is not the hero cowboy, and often leaping to the wrong conclusion. But he also has that sense of right that keeps driving him forward. The books are well plotted and the supporting characters are as interesting as John. Wright puts the reader in post WII Los Angeles when the studio system was still in existence, everyone smoked and men wore hats. I have very much enjoyed both books in this series and look forward to reading the next.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very very good, May 12, 2005

By 

David W. Nicholas (Van Nuys, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: While I Disappear (Prime Crime Mysteries) (Paperback)

Every once in a while, you read a book that's just dead on perfect. Usually, the author follows this with something more down to earth, not as good or polished. Very occasionally you read a first novel that's perfect, and it's followed by a second novel that's as good as the first. Clea's Moon was brilliant, and While I Dissappear is as good if not better.

John Ray Horn, the main character, is a disgraced former B-movie star who mostly was in bad Westerns, and spent two years in prison for punching the son of the head of his studio. These days, he works as a collection agent for his former big screen sidekick and faithful Indian companion, who now owns a casino just north of LA. The series is set in the just-post-War era, when Los Angeles was booming and Hollywood was in its Golden Era.

In While I Dissappear, Horn runs across a former co-star of his, a dignified intelligent woman who was a much better actress than he, but vanished after filming the movie. Years later she's living in poverty on Bunker Hill in LA, and doesn't want to have much contact with him. A few days later, she's dead, strangled, and Horn of course decides to find out who killed her. Things sort of progress for a while, then go sideways when there's another killing, and of course along the way, Horn has to journey through various parts of Los Angeles, meeting various Hollywood types, a preacher, poor people, and eventually the killer.

This is one of the best second novels in a detective series that I've ever read. I disagree thoroughly with the previous reviewer who complains this book isn't like Chinatown or something: the character is essentially an amateur detective, not a professional, so his judgements aren't consistent or always intelligent. His friends are apparently aware of his temper, and make allowances. While James Ellroy is a great writer, Edward Wright isn't Ellroy: the prose is much less adventurous and more conventional, but more poetic in places, and less choppy; while the story, in contrast, is less dark, cynical, and negative. This isn't something that bears discussion, in my opinion: every writer is different, and the tone of the books will be different too.

I really enjoyed this book, and frankly I haven't met anyone else who's read the book who didn't enjoy it immensely.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling Movie Nostalgia Mystery, June 22, 2006

By 

B. Ramsey - See all my reviews
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This review is from: While I Disappear (Hardcover)

I must begin my review by stating that I am biased because I think the author Wright is one hell of a writer (based solely on the Horn series as that is all I have read by him). This novel is nostalgic, with a good mystery, great plotting, believable characters and lots of heart.

John Ray Horn was a somewhat successfull B movie "star" in the loosest since years ago and now does a little looking around for people that need help, aided by his sidekick Joseph Mad Crow, also a former actor (the Indian sidekick to John Ray's cowboy). John Ray is a sympathetic, believable Hero with a grounded set of morals and beliefs, despite the trampeling they often take. Wright is an author who evokes an age, both good and bad, when the world was a little younger and more naive, though not by much. Mystery fans everywhere should find Wright and devour anything he has written featuring Horn and Mad Crow.