- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Paperbacks; First THUS edition (Aug 29 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0143037307
- ISBN-13: 978-0143037309
- Product Dimensions: 19.5 x 13.5 x 1.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 23 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #325,571 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. At the start of Crumley's brilliant new hard-boiled detective novel, Montana PI C.W. Sughrue (introduced in the author's 1978 crime classic, The Last Good Kiss) is relaxing in a hot tub with his old buddy, psychiatrist William MacKinderick. Their team has just won the state championship in the over 50 softball league. Sughrue, whose body bears "more scars than a practice corpse," has even quit smoking. But when MacKinderick hires him to shadow some of his patients to see who may have taken personal files from his office, his old wild urges come roaring back. "I wanted another cigarette. So badly I couldn't remember why I had quit." Cigarettes, whiskey and cocaine all return to Sughrue's menu as one patient after another dies a gruesome death, and the reasons for the murders becomes less and less apparent. Soon Sughrue can threaten a bad guy with the warning, "I've got a hangover that would kill a normal man." Crumley shows his usual deft touch with poetic language (a shady lawyer boasts "a smile as innocent as the first martini") and humor ("I'm a private investigator, sir; I leave the blackmail to the lawyers"). The themes of nightmarish madness, betrayal and survival will glue readers to the page. Crumley remains one of the finest writers in the Raymond Chandler tradition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
"I'd been older a few hours ago, but now those Scotch-Irish redneck genes had taken over. Plus a couple of Vicodins. I was a fistful of random trouble again." There's no doubt who's talking: got to be C. W. Sughrue, Crumley's aging, perpetually pickled, still-crazy-after-all-these-years sleuth, on the warpath again. It wasn't supposed to be this way, C. W. keeps telling us, as he chugs the pills, inhales the weed, and swills the booze across most of the western U.S. in search of . . . well, what exactly? We don't know, that's for sure, and it's anybody's guess if C. W. does. It all starts when Sughrue's Montana pal, psychiatrist Mac, hires him to find out who stole the shrink's computer disks, containing confidential details about his clients. Soon, though, those clients have begun to die in incredibly gruesome ways. The plot doesn't thicken so much as congeal, but anyone who reads Crumley knows that storyline is only an excuse to get our ol' boy on the road and on the juice. Yes, it's starting to sound a bit too familiar, but there's something about C. W.'s unrepentant thirst (both for booze and vengeance) and his willful foolishness, his absolute inability to do the sensible thing, that makes him stand out in a genre on the verge of being taken over by reformed drunks and socially responsible adults. This is character-driven fiction for those who want no part of designated drivers. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.1 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Same old, same old., May 25 2005
By David E. Hintz - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Right Madness (Hardcover)
Maybe I'm Crumleyed out, but his loser lead characters storming through fascinating and horrific landscapes of human depravity (while scoring with every female along the way) are getting a little tired and ugly by now. I enjoyed the last book a lot and The Last Good Kiss is still a must read. However this one is for the Crumley completists only. Perhaps I prefer his Milo-lead books as opposed to the Sughrue led efforts (like this one). If you've read him before, you know what you're getting. If you haven't, start with the earlier efforts.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing, May 23 2006
By Owen Gilmore "owengmo" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Right Madness (Hardcover)
I read Crumley's "The Last Good Kiss," and that may have been his last good book. Anybody else may have gotten at least 3 stars but I think Crumley's gotten lazy. Any time Sughrue gets into a fix, he's always able to kick ass and fight his way out. Of course, any 70 year old Korean war vet should be able to take out a 30 year old FBI agent in top shape....sure. Believable. Hey, Crumley. This is supposed to be crime fiction, not fantasy.
The author also seems to have a voyeuristic fascination with young women and drugs, in no particular order.
Sex and drugs were used to good effect in "Kiss." Here, they're just cheap devices to spice up a basically very boring plot.
So much more could have been done with the illegal immigrant/white slavery/child abuse story, but that was never explored. Just good ol' Sughrue kickin' ass.....zzzzzzz.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Got to be a diehard Crumley fan for this one, Feb 26 2006
By Jim Beam - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Right Madness (Hardcover)
If you've never read Crumley, read his earlier work in "Dancing Bear" or "The Wrong Case" before this one. They have the same sensibility and feel, but the stories are tighter and the books just work better.
Yes, this book is better written than a lot of hackwork you'll find out there in the crime and mystery genre, but after reading other stuff he's written I guess I'm holding him to a higher standard.
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