"When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.”

What an opening sentence. A kicker. Let me say straight out, this is a five star book; it’s just that five-star reads for me mean they need a place on my shelf and a re-read or more. (Thus, four and a half rating on my WordPress blog). This: this was beautifully written, not an extraneous word but so interestingly, humorously, perfectly descriptive:

“As I ordered a beer from the middle-aged barmaid, she slipped out of her daydreams and into a sleepy grin. When she opened the bottle, the bulldog came out of his drunken nap, belched like a dragon, then heaved his narrow haunches upright and waddled across three rickety stools through the musty cloud of stale beer and bulldog breath to trade me a wet, stringy kiss for a hit off my beer. I didn’t offer him any, so he upped the ante by drooling all over my sunburnt elbow.”

But Crumley, and the narrator, C.W. Sughrue, set up an exhausting pace through the seediest of joints. C.W. is chasing an errant Trahearne for his ex-wife, who wants him back at his place and writing his next Great Novel. Trahearne seems intent on drinking his way across the west in the seediest bars possible, until he lands in this one. A fight lands Trahearne in the hospital, and the sleepy barmaid, Rosie, offers C.W. a job finding her lost daughter while he waits on Trahearne’s recovery and release before escorting him back home. The two detour through San Francisco following a lead. The plot's a kicker; I did not expect all the places it went to.

C.W. knows how wretched much of his existence is, and his humor lessons the sadness. He also has a fair bit of compassion mixed in with the anger and the bitterness at those that exploit and are exploited. But he’s never far from a drunk, and he’s closer still to a beer and a whiskey. In these days, you did half your drinking while driving. The unencumbered sex, the porn–if you had any illusions about free love, the 1960s, and their aftermath, this will help disabuse them. Drugs? Why yes, it'll help the booze along.

It took me a long time to finish this book, unusually long for its short length and quality–and for a mystery. All I can say is that it is because of the strength of the writing; out of very clear choices, I’ve stayed far away from C.W.’s world, and to immerse myself in it is both sad and exhausting. It’s like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas written by Raymond Chandler.

“The next morning, the condemned man, who had slept like a child and showered like a teenager preparing for a date, ate as hearty a breakfast as the Holiday Inn could provide, then stepped outside to contemplate the delicate air and the clear blue sunshine of the high plains.”

Sad, beautiful, drunken, funny, tragic; highly recommended.

( )

This was a real old school Thriller that I totally enjoyed.
It’s definitely reminiscent of Raymond Chandler.
Can’t wait to get my hands on the Next Detective C.W.Sughrue Novel.
Top Class American Noir. ( )

One of my favorite opening sentences: “When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.” ( )

What a disappointment. It started out like someone had just finished a Raymond Chandler book and decided to copy his style, but then it droned on and on with not much happening. I finally got to approx. the half way mark and gave up on the book. I did look up the plot and I'm even more happy for quitting on this book knowing that the big twist at the end was so lame. ( )

If you're in the mood for a concentrated dose of the 1970s, let me hand you this copy of this book. The story centers on a private detective who is sent to haul a famous author home from a bender and who, along the way, gets involved in finding a woman who disappeared years ago. This is a novel filled with drinking, having sex, drinking some more, smoking some weed, driving while drinking, drinking while driving and the occasional fist fight. There was no way for me to picture the detective without a substantial mustache and he even drives an El Camino. The women are all ready to have sex with the private dick, although he does turn a few down. And while the women are usually up for some fun, they are also, for the most part, fully realized characters who are braver than the men, out of necessity.

As for the plot itself, it's not bad. It appears to spin its wheels for a while in the middle, but once you've had your third or fourth to-go cup of gin and tonic and the rest of that six-pack, the story comes together. This was a fun read, although I spent much of it wondering how on earth they got anything done between the benders and the hang-overs. ( )