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
Labels: California fiction, mystery
posted by Kathryn at 8:22 PM
3 Comments:
Second Chair by John Lescroart
This book is part of a series that features characters Dismas Hardy, a lawyer, and his policeman friend Abe Glitsky. The setting is San Francisco, hence the California connection. Both characters have reached a point in their careers where they are no longer involved in the day to day activities of their profession. This cases focuses on a murder investigation. A teenager is accused of killing his girlfriend and a professor. Hardy's associate, Amy Wu makes an error in judgment and law by admitting to the boy's guilt while trying to get him tried as a juvenile. Hardy, as second chair, comes to the rescue in the courtroom and Glitsky helps unravel the truth about the murder. The novel is character driven but he plot is plausible. Started out slowly but I did enjoy the story in the end. Recommended.
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'The Ruins of California' by Martha Sherrill is a highly recommended
> read. The ruins are a family living through the 1970s in and around
> San Fransciso. Written in the first person Inez grows up during the
> 70s and we follow her as she navigates her way through the chaos of
> her family life. Her parents are divorced and the more central
> character is her father whom she visits intermitently. We learn
> about his girlfriends through the eyes of Inez and at the same time
> watch the city grow and change. Other interesting characters are her
> half brother and her grandmother. very enjoyable
> Rhian
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