Case File, by Bill Pronzini
Oct. 23rd, 2008 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aI've finished reading Case File, a set of short stories about the Nameless Detective by Bill Pronzini. They were written over a period of 10+ years, so they cover the entirety of Nameless' career to that date, from before his first novel to just before Scattershot (the last one I've read).
To start with, I don't think the short story is as good of a format for mystery as the short novel. And, yes, I've read Holmes too. There just isn't time for much anything but mystery-solution, especially in the twenty or so pages that most of these stories featured.
I've complained in other posts about Nameless turning into a Holmesian locked-door-mystery solver, and that's obvious here too.
In an author's note on "Private Eye Blues", a story situated at the midpoint of this collection, Pronzini talks about how he'd originally planned to kill off Nameless, and when he didn't, he began to change things up in the stories instead. As he says, "And you'll also find that the types of cases he becomes involved in are somewhat different, too; that they're a bit more, um, puzzling than his straightforward investigations during the prelesion period."
To which I say, sigh. Whether you're Laurell K. Hamilton or Bill Pronzini, you shouldn't notably change the type of story you're telling midway through a series. It just annoys your early adopters. Sure enough Case File immediately follows that author's note with two locked-room murders. There's also a locked-room theft and a disappearance on a small island later in the book.
And I done with Pronzini? Not quite yet. He gets at least one more try, with Dragonfire, primarily because that was published before Case File and thus would be a clean breaking point. But if Prozini hasn't done away with his stupid locked rooms by then, I'm probably done with him.
In the meantime, I've ordered a new pulp book, Little Girl Lost by Richard Aleas (not his real name). The author was on NPR recently, and his series (just two books long to date) sounds interesting, if dark ... but I really liked the other modern noir series I've read recently, which was the Atticus Kodiak series by Greg Rucka.
To start with, I don't think the short story is as good of a format for mystery as the short novel. And, yes, I've read Holmes too. There just isn't time for much anything but mystery-solution, especially in the twenty or so pages that most of these stories featured.
I've complained in other posts about Nameless turning into a Holmesian locked-door-mystery solver, and that's obvious here too.
In an author's note on "Private Eye Blues", a story situated at the midpoint of this collection, Pronzini talks about how he'd originally planned to kill off Nameless, and when he didn't, he began to change things up in the stories instead. As he says, "And you'll also find that the types of cases he becomes involved in are somewhat different, too; that they're a bit more, um, puzzling than his straightforward investigations during the prelesion period."
To which I say, sigh. Whether you're Laurell K. Hamilton or Bill Pronzini, you shouldn't notably change the type of story you're telling midway through a series. It just annoys your early adopters. Sure enough Case File immediately follows that author's note with two locked-room murders. There's also a locked-room theft and a disappearance on a small island later in the book.
And I done with Pronzini? Not quite yet. He gets at least one more try, with Dragonfire, primarily because that was published before Case File and thus would be a clean breaking point. But if Prozini hasn't done away with his stupid locked rooms by then, I'm probably done with him.
In the meantime, I've ordered a new pulp book, Little Girl Lost by Richard Aleas (not his real name). The author was on NPR recently, and his series (just two books long to date) sounds interesting, if dark ... but I really liked the other modern noir series I've read recently, which was the Atticus Kodiak series by Greg Rucka.