California Fiction

BLUE LONESOME by Bill Pronzini

While the connection to California is kind of tenuous (the story starts off in San Francisco and the author lives there), I wanted to report on it anyway.  Pronzini is a very prolific and multiple award winning mystery writer and I've been eyeing his novels for awhile.  This book does not disappoint.  

Blue Lonesome is the story of a very lonely, isolated guy, Jim Messenger, an accountant by trade, who becomes obsessed with an equally lonely woman who eats at his favourite restaurant night after night.  A tentative introduction leads nowhere, but Jim finds out enough about the woman, Janet Mitchell,  that later, when she disappears from the restaurant, he is able to go to her apartment and discover that she's killed herself.  Money slipped to Janet's landlady buys a quick search of her apartment, which yields a library book from a small town in Nevada.

Jim heads off to Beulah, Nevada where he discovers Janet is despised by the whole town, including her sister, because they believe she murdered her husband and young daughter.  But Jim doesn't believe this and sets out to discover the truth.  In the process he discovers himself.

Pronzini writes in a tight, noirish style.  He uses the stark desert setting and Jim's references to the jazz music he loves to evoke the lonesomeness of the tale.  The reader cares about Jim and how his life turns out.  A little romance adds to the mix.  The ending, while not a total surprise, provides a nice little twist.

Recommended.

Kathryn 

 

Recommended  

next meeting

Sunday april 20th at at Pat's place. Subject is California fiction.