Fadeout (A Dave Brandstetter Mystery) (Paperback)

by Joseph Hansen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From The Washington Post
"Hansen is a master of kaleidescopic narration."

Review
"A cool stylist who never loses control over his emotional voice, Mr. Hansen trusts his lifelike characters to earn our compassion." -- The New York Times Book Review

"Hansen knows how to tell a tough, unsentimental, fast-moving story in an exceptionally urbane style."

-- The New York Times

"Hansen's dry wit and spare effective prose remain a rarity."

-- Chicago Tribune

"Joseph Hansen has a richly deserved reputation as a novelist whose work is distinguished by its brilliant clarity of style and rock-ribbed integrity. He has created a body of work that, among other things, chronicles the experience of being gay with precision and honesty; he is, in fact, the father of all of us gay and lesbian writers." -- Michael Nava, author of The Burning Plain and Death of Friends

"Quite simply the most exciting and effective writer of the classic California private-eye novel working today." -- The Los Angeles Times

"Were I awarding a grand master's prize this year, it would have to go to Joseph Hansen...Hansen's economy of works, his sympathy with all the rich variety of characters who people his books...have made him one of our finest writers." -- Boston Globe

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Alyson Books (May 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155583552X
• ISBN-13: 978-1555835521
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #122,162 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than just a Gay Detective Novel, A Good Novel, February 9, 2005

By	John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Fadeout: A Dave Brandstetter Mystery (Paperback)

Can you imagine the impact of a gay tough guy detective in 1972, that was thirteen years before Rock Hudson. Indeed, can you imagine a gay tough guy detective even today with all the attacks on Sponge Bob and and other stupidities.

But it's true. In 1972 Joseph Hansen published the first of what would grow to twenty five novels, twelve of which featured Dave Brandstetter the openly, contentedly gay thinking man's tough guy.

Dave is an insurance company investigator in charge of looking into false claims. In Fadeout, pop star Fox Olson's white convertible plunged off a narrow wooden bride and killed him. But where's the body.

That's enough of the story, you can guess what happens from there. It's a good story, well written as any novel that starts a series of twelve mysteries has to be. Highly Recommended.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "It will do for a start.", October 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Fadeout (Paperback)

In 1970 Joseph Hansen single-handedly changed the face (or at least the sexual orientation)of the mystery genre forever with FADEOUT and Dave Brandstetter, Hansen's openly and comfortably homosexual sleuth.

Brandstetter was not the first gay detective, but he was the first healthy, "normal" gay detective. Brandstetter is handsome, urbane yet ruggedly masculine, and straight in all the essential ways. He is as real a person as a character in a novel can ever be. The same is true of all the series regulars. No one ever--with the exception of Cecil Harris' unconvincing marriage to Chrissie Streeter--steps out of character. Right down to the series somewhat melodramatic conclusion.

Besides providing a positive homosexual role model, Hansen's Brandstetter series is remarkable for setting the standard against which 90% of all other gay mystery writers fail to measure up. The writing is superb. Hansen has been compared to Hammett, Ross MacDonald and Chandler. All genre writers following Hansen are compared to Hansen. With good reason.

In the first of the twelve book series insurance investigator Brandstetter, still grieving over the death of his longtime lover, sets out to discover what happened to singer Fox Olson. Olson's wrecked car has been found minus Olson. Where's the body? Is the accident an accident? Did Fox committ suicide? Did someone murder him? Or is Fox alive and faking his death? And how does all this relate to the sudden reappearance of Olson's boyhood lover, a man Brandstetter feels queerly connected to--a man now also missing?

Read this novel and you will have no further need of reader recommendations. You will hunt down each and every book in the entire series--as relentless as Dave Brandstetter himself.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A landmark detective..., August 9, 2001

By A Customer

Joseph Hansen was the second author to construct a series around a gay detective--George Baxt preceded him--and the first to make his gay detective absolutely "normal." And by "normal," I mean "average." Dave Brandstetter is a decent, reticent, often rather icy human being. No genius, he solves cases by patient sleuthing rather than Holmesian leaps of logic. And Brandstetter, who eventually ages in "real time," ultimately comes apart at the seams in realistic fashion: in the last novels, when he is close to 70, Brandstetter forgets things, needs reading glasses, and loses the stamina he needs to think straight. In this, the first novel, he is just beginning to emerge from profound, paralyzing mourning for his companion of twenty-two years; as the series progresses, he will acquire two more partners, one a misfire and the other more permanent. Hansen's characterizations are sharp throughout, and his prose style--short, snappy sentences, with the occasional quirky metaphor or simile thrown in--is deceptively simple. Both this novel and the series as a whole are worthwhile reading.