Fever

Having narrated a considerable number of "Nameless Detective" novels, you'd expect veteran Nick Sullivan to get it down pat. While Sullivan delivers an adequate performance in this latest, his reading falls short of expectations. Nameless and his crew, Tamara and Jake, are called in to find a woman with a gambling addiction who has disappeared. Finding her is easy--Nameless finds her twice--then she disappears for good, and foul play is suspected, possibly by the woman's husband, who hired the detectives in the first place. When the search is launched again, something besides the missing woman is uncovered. Sullivan's announcer-like voice gets your attention, but there's little variation in his pace or his characters. You can be listening one moment, lost the next. A.L.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

April 14, 2008
Once again Pronzini, soon to be designated an MWA Grand Master, captures the quiet despair of his characters’ lives in the 33rd entry in his noirish whodunit series featuring the Nameless Detective (after 2007’s Savages
). Mitchell Krochek, who’s worried about the gambling addiction of his wife, Janice, hires Nameless to trace Janice, who’s disappeared for the fourth time in four years. When Jake Runyon, Nameless’s associate, traces Janice to an apartment hotel near their San Francisco office, Nameless and Jake decide to honor Janice’s request not to reveal her location to her husband. Later, a battered Janice shows up at the detective agency’s office, where she agrees to go home, only to vanish again amid circumstances strongly indicating foul play. In an affecting subplot, Jake investigates the mysterious beating of a devoted churchgoer’s son. This insightful novel will appeal to those who like the mean streets portrayed with understatement and subtlety rather than gory violence.