Death Is a Lonely Business (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Venice, California, in the old days had much to recommend it to people who liked to be sad..." (more)
Key Phrases: canary lady, lonely business, lion cage, Constance Rattigan, Ray Bradbury, Scott Joplin (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The image of drowned circus cages in the trash-filled canals of Venice, California, both haunts and illuminates famed fantasy and science fiction author Ray Bradbury's rare venture into the mystery field. Like filmmaker Federico Fellini, Bradbury is fascinated by the seedy splendor of cheap carnivals and circuses--"a long time before, in the early Twenties, these cages had probably rolled by like bright summer storms with animals prowling them, lions opening their mouths to exhale hot meat breaths. Teams of white horses had dragged their pomp through Venice and across the fields."

But now it's the early 1950s, and foggy, shabby Venice is the last stop on the circus train for scores of old silent-movie stars and young writers trying to keep their art and their bodies alive. As Bradbury's autobiographical hero, a young writer, pounds out his short stories, someone is killing off the older denizens of the tacky city. The writer joins forces with a quirky detective called Elmo Crumley and a faded screen star to investigates the deaths. Their search begins and ends in one of those iconic, waterlogged cages.

Blending hard-boiled detective fiction with beautiful descriptions of this strange Californian town, Death Is a Lonely Business is well worth investigating. --Dick Adler

From Library Journal

Dedicated to Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Ross Macdonald, Bradbury's 1985 novel is a paean to the hard-boiled mystery. The plot follows a writer who joins ranks with a detective and an actress to get to the bottom of some strange doings. Bradbury is always worth reading.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; 1st THUS edition (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380789655
• ISBN-13: 978-0380789658
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #116,537 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great new twist for Bradbury, August 5, 2003

By	VoodooLord7 (Oklahoma, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Ray Bradbury, as his fans know, is a man who has published a lot of works through the years -- over 500 -- but only a handful of novels. Most of his novels, in fact, are expanded versions of his short stories, e.g., Fahrenheit 451. Death Is A Lonely Business, a very good title from a man who is a master of titles, published in 1985, was his first novel since 1962's Something Wicked This Way Comes. What a surprise, then, it was for me to find this overlooked gem at my local library for a mere 50 cents. It is something one would not expect Bradbury to write: a detective story. Of sorts. This genre, previously monopolized in the science fiction realm by Isaac Asimov (as was everything else), turns out to fit Bradbury's writing style surprisingly well. As anyone who has read the author knows, he has a unique and very distinctive style -- poetic, atmospheric, and highly literary. Arthur C. Clarke has termed him a "prose poet", and this description works quite well. His aforementioned style, which is very complex and literary, would seem, on the surface, ill-suited to a hard-boiled detective novel and destined to be relegated to the short story -- as, indeed, much of Bradbury's work is. His writing style and use of imagery is very dense and literate, too much for some, and is often difficult to hold up over the course of a novel. This novel, like much of his work, contains very vivid poetic descriptions and not a few fantasy elements, and the reader is often left unsure whether a given sentence is meant to be taken literally or only figuratively. This was a problem for many readers with Something Wicked This Way Comes, a novel that had a very simple plot -- one might almost say, with its two child protagonists, that it was written for teenagers -- but this issue, thankfully, does not come up during the course of this interesting and very engrossing novel. Though this is, essentially, a detective story, it does not escape Bradbury's distinctive touches. His style is omnipresent throughout. It proves to be very engrossing. The first chapter -- the book's sections are not technically separated as such, but the definition will work fine -- pulls the reader in, and it is very difficult to put it down: I read the book nearly in one sitting. Bradbury pours on the suspense and the keeps the reader reading. His poetic descriptions of Venice, California's broken-down piers and carnival scenery are vivid and very atmospheric; the descriptions are beautiful prose to read, mysterious and alluring, dark and brooding. Any long-time Bradbury reader will immediately appreciate this aspect of the novel. The book is also loaded with literary references, to Brabdury's own work and to a vast number of other authors. This is a treat for the author's faithful readers and shows the author's encyclopedic knowledge of literature. In addition, the novels main character, by whom it is narrarated, is a highly autobiographical character clearly modeled on Bradbury's own early career. All of this is very good, certainly enough to recommend the novel. The only reason I have given it 4 stars is the ending, which is a very jarring anti-climax. The final revealing of the murderer is not a surprise, and the way in which he is caught is very unrealistic and hard to believe. This will probably frustrate the reader, as it did me, putting an ill-conceived end to an otherwise excellent novel. Stil, the book is well-worth reading, as Bradbury usually is, and this flaw only dims one's enjoyment of it somewhat. Highly recommended for Bradbury fans, or those who enjoy the noir mystery genre and are looking for something with more of a twist than they usually get.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Hard boiled" mystery, with tender-hearted sleuth., July 11, 2003

By	Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

Writing in the style of hard-boiled mystery writers such as Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett, Bradbury sets his story in Venice, California, in 1949, presenting as his main character a 27-year-old struggling writer, much like himself. Returning to Venice late one night on the last trolley from Los Angeles, he finds himself alone in the car, except for a mysterious, alcohol-fumed vagrant, who whispers in his ear, "Death is a lonely business." Convinced that he has met "Death's friend," the speaker gets "chicken skin," which gets worse when, upon arriving in Venice, he glances into an old canal and discovers, inside an abandoned lion cage, a body bobbing up and down on the tides.

The city of Venice in 1949 is a place for the down-and-out, its pier and amusement park crumbling, its rollercoaster lying on its side "like the bones of a vast dinosaur," old animal cages abandoned in the canals and filled with fish, and the oil pumps looking like "great pterodactyls" as they creak and groan. Inhabited by "the lonelies," old people with no futures, Venice is a dark and dismal place in those final days before the pier is demolished. Bradbury's hypnotic descriptions of this decrepitude provide dramatic contrasts with the young speaker who still has hopes, dreams, and a future.

With veteran detective Elmo Crumley as his mentor, the speaker tries to save lives and outwit a mysterious stalker, as more and more sad, old people meet their deaths. Hollywood performers, an opera singer, a lady who once raised canaries, a tarot card reader, an inept barber who knew Scott Joplin, and the owner of an old cinema all contribute to the color, atmosphere, and action in this unusual story of people and places which have outlived their usefulness.

Bradbury's writing, as always, is witty, descriptive, imaginative, and atmospheric. These separate elements do not seem to jell into a coherent whole, however. The speaker and Crumley are supposed to be "hard-boiled," but their genuine tenderness and naivete work at cross-purposes with the sometimes gruesome deaths they investigate. Unlike the classic detectives, they seem to care more about the sad, old residents than they do about catching the killer. Elements of the supernatural impinge upon the realism, and the reader is not always sure whether strange events should be taken literally or figuratively. When the killer is finally identified, it's almost an anti-climax, since he is less developed and far less interesting than his victims. Ultimately, it's the inherent "niceness" of Bradbury's characters and his clear belief in life's hopefulness which work to undermine the drama and fear engendered by the bizarre murders. As Bradbury makes clear, if one adapts to life's changes, one can truly "live." Mary Whipple

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fun, creepy noir homage., January 1, 2000

By A Customer

Venice, California, 1947. The boardwalk is slowly dying, the rollercoaster's on its last legs, and the oil wells pump sightlessly away just outside of town. On a trolley car racketing home one stormy night, a young man who dreams of writing science fiction gets a chilling message in his ear from an unseen man behind him... and soon, it seems that Death itself walks the streets of Venice, robbing the town of all the people who gave it its life and soul. Can a chubby would-be writer, a detective with a jungle in his backyard, and the world's greatest blind man beat Death at its own game? An immensely fun and beautifully written tribute to Raymond Chandler, based in good part on the author's own life. Fans of old Hollywood will want to check out the sequel, "A Graveyard For Lunatics."