In his 24th and most intriguing appearance, the "Nameless Detective" finds himself involved in two intricate and emotional investigations. The first is intensely personal: the unexpected death of his estranged friend and former partner, Eberhardt. Although there seems to be no question that Eberhardt committed suicide, "Nameless" becomes obsessed with the reasons behind the act. "A man doesn't just all of a sudden trade living for dying. Something prods him across the line between thinking about it and actually doing it. Every suicide, every homicide has its trigger. What was Eberhardt's?"
Meanwhile, he is hired by a Santa Fe businessman to find his ex-wife, who disappeared three years earlier. Locating the woman turns out to be fairly simple; she is living and working in the northern California wine country. But just when the case seems finished, it takes on bizarre dimensions—a fatal shooting that may or may not be accidental, hidden motives, and a web of lies and deception. "Nameless" is compelled to continue his investigation when it becomes clear he is partly, if inadvertently, responsible for the victim's death.
The keys to both cases lie in illusions—those people create about themselves and those they perceive in others. Additional similarities also emerge, leading "Nameless" to a series of startling revelations and ultimately to the two most difficult decisions of his career.
**
From Booklist
Santa Fe businessman Ira Erskine hires San Francisco private eye Nameless to find his missing ex-wife, Janice, who may have relocated to the Bay Area. Erskine wants to offer Janice one last chance to see her only child, who is dying of leukemia. Nameless accepts the case, partially to get his mind off the suicide of his ex-partner and ex^-best friend, Eberhardt. Within days after Nameless finds the missing woman, Erskine is found dead in a hotel room near his ex-wife's new home. While that nightmare is unfolding, Nameless tries to understand why Eb took his own life. Perhaps it wasn't suicide after all. As the cases progress, they parallel one another with an eerie similarity that forces Nameless to reexamine his previously unshakable moral certitude and self-proclaimed position as a sentinel of black-and-white justice. The Nameless series is 26 entries and almost 30 years old, and Nameless himself is edging toward 60. The sheer duration of the series, as well as its increasing depth and the steady maturation of Nameless--both chronologically and emotionally--represent a stunning and unique achievement in crime fiction. The series, the character, and this book are not to be missed. Nameless has become an American treasure. Wes Lukowsky
Description:
In his 24th and most intriguing appearance, the "Nameless Detective" finds himself involved in two intricate and emotional investigations. The first is intensely personal: the unexpected death of his estranged friend and former partner, Eberhardt. Although there seems to be no question that Eberhardt committed suicide, "Nameless" becomes obsessed with the reasons behind the act. "A man doesn't just all of a sudden trade living for dying. Something prods him across the line between thinking about it and actually doing it. Every suicide, every homicide has its trigger. What was Eberhardt's?"
Meanwhile, he is hired by a Santa Fe businessman to find his ex-wife, who disappeared three years earlier. Locating the woman turns out to be fairly simple; she is living and working in the northern California wine country. But just when the case seems finished, it takes on bizarre dimensions—a fatal shooting that may or may not be accidental, hidden motives, and a web of lies and deception. "Nameless" is compelled to continue his investigation when it becomes clear he is partly, if inadvertently, responsible for the victim's death.
The keys to both cases lie in illusions—those people create about themselves and those they perceive in others. Additional similarities also emerge, leading "Nameless" to a series of startling revelations and ultimately to the two most difficult decisions of his career.
**
From Booklist
Santa Fe businessman Ira Erskine hires San Francisco private eye Nameless to find his missing ex-wife, Janice, who may have relocated to the Bay Area. Erskine wants to offer Janice one last chance to see her only child, who is dying of leukemia. Nameless accepts the case, partially to get his mind off the suicide of his ex-partner and ex^-best friend, Eberhardt. Within days after Nameless finds the missing woman, Erskine is found dead in a hotel room near his ex-wife's new home. While that nightmare is unfolding, Nameless tries to understand why Eb took his own life. Perhaps it wasn't suicide after all. As the cases progress, they parallel one another with an eerie similarity that forces Nameless to reexamine his previously unshakable moral certitude and self-proclaimed position as a sentinel of black-and-white justice. The Nameless series is 26 entries and almost 30 years old, and Nameless himself is edging toward 60. The sheer duration of the series, as well as its increasing depth and the steady maturation of Nameless--both chronologically and emotionally--represent a stunning and unique achievement in crime fiction. The series, the character, and this book are not to be missed. Nameless has become an American treasure. Wes Lukowsky
From Kirkus Reviews
Think the death of the Nameless Detective's (Sentinels, 1996, etc.) embittered ex-partner Eberhardt will finally close the book on the bad blood between the two? You don't know brooding Nameless, who, seeing Eberhardt's pathological moodiness as the mirror of his own, won't rest till he knows exactly what happened to make Eberhardt shoot himself in the chest. But soon his sorrowing investigation into Eberhardt's last assignment, a series of inside-job thefts from a pair of loutish liquor distributors, gets interrupted by a new assignment of his own: finding the ex-wife of Santa Fe financial consultant Ira Erskine, armed only with a postcard to a female friend saying that she's in the Bay Area and desperate to find the woman who left him and their hometown four years ago before their son dies of leukemia. So Nameless, continuing his exhaustive tour of northern California, heads out to the wine country in Alexander Valley and finds Janice Erskine just in time for his client to get shot as dead as his ex-partner. You can't help thinking the two cases will have something to do with each other, and so they do, but not at all in the way you expect. Characteristically overblown but solid midgrade work from Nameless, even if the old guy (now pushing 60) is awfully full of illusions for a veteran of 23 earlier cases. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.