Camouflage

April 11, 2011
Pronzini's 36th Nameless Detective novel, though a marked improvement over its immediate predecessor, 2010's Betrayers, hardly reflects a return to form by the MWA Grand Master. This entry, like other recent books in the series, alternates between the eponymous lead, a San Francisco PI, and the ongoing travails of his colleague, Jake Runyon. Obnoxious businessman David Virden hires Nameless to trace his first (of three) ex-wives, so that he can get the annulment his current fiancée requires. While Nameless quickly finds the first former Mrs. Virden, his client's subsequent disappearance leads to violent complications. Runyon's case has a personal aspectâhis new love interest, Bryn Darby, believes that her nine-year-old son, Bobby, is being abused by her ex-husband, but can't get Bobby to confirm her fears. Runyon's discovery of the truth likewise has violent consequences. Contrivances that some readers will find hard to swallow burden both story lines.

Starred review from April 15, 2011

The Nameless Detective Agency must cope with a clutch of monsters, all members of the gentler sex.

From the moment David Virden sets an outrageously expensive shoe in the agency's barebones office, Nameless takes against him. The man is too sleek, too carefully put together. Still, the gig seems straightforward enough once a certain amount of veneer is stripped away. Virden wants an ex-wife found. That's the straightforward part. No problem. Harness Tamara, Nameless' black, beautiful and extremely brainy colleague, to her agile computer, and they're halfway to a final tally of billable hours. The offbeat part has to do with the reason Virden wants his ex tracked down dead or alive. It's central to his current and shamelessly shady matrimonial venture, involving the very well-heeled, very Catholic Judith Lopresti. But that's his business, Nameless decides, while preparing to pursue the agency's. Nameless finds Roxanne McManus as easily as he thought he would and almost immediately wishes he hadn't. She and Jane Carson, her partner in vicious crime, are Messalina and Lucrezia Borgia for our time. Meanwhile, Jake Runyon, the agency's crack field investigator, has also taken a case involving one of San Francisco's loathsome ladies. What makes his case different is that it's personal. What makes it a match is the woman's unregenerate wickedness.

Can doing first-rate work as consistently as Pronzini (Betrayers, 2010, etc.) really be as effortless as he makes it seem?

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

April 1, 2011

Mystery Grand Master Pronzini is always in demand.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2011
David Virden is a pompous ass, but hes got money, and all he wants of the Nameless Detective is for him to find Virden's ex-wife and deliver some papers for her signature. Easy enough for a veteran private investigator. Or so it seems. The woman Nameless finds living under the name he is given is not Virdens ex. Virden threatens to sue, but more troubling, he soon vanishes himself. Jake Runyon, an investigator for Nameless agency, has his own very personal case. His significant other is charged with killing her young sons abusive stepmother. She confesses, but the case against her unravels quickly. It seems shes protecting her son. Could a 10-year-old boy really have stabbed a grown woman to death? Perhaps he was protecting himself from additional abuse? The cases run parallel and never intersect but share a common theme: monsters are often able to disguise themselves for years under the camouflage of respectability. The Nameless series continues to be a wonder of great plotting, long-term character development, and insight into the chilling banality of evil.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)