Bill Pronzini books

A Wasteland of Strangers (1999)

Bill Pronzini is an entertainer. Through the entire book, "A Wasteland of Strangers," I had a smile and warm feelings that I was experiencing the lives of a group of characters who had a tale to tell. The book made me think of a modern Peyton Place mixed with a TV soap opera.A large, brutal looki...

Nightcrawlers (2005)

[Borrowed from my Public Library]Another of Pronzini's nameless detective novels--a series that has been ongoing for several decades. Has he kept up the intensity with this character? Yes he has! This time he presents three parallel stories that deal with the very dark side of human depravity (he...

Mourners (2007)

Here is a list of all the books (in order) Happy Reading.1971tThe Snatcht Random Houset1973tThe Vanishedt Random Houset1973tUndercurrentst Random Houset1977tBlowbackt Ramdom Houset1978tTwospott Putmant1980tLaybrintht St. Martin's Presst1980tA Killing In XanadutWaves Presst1981tHoodwinkedt St. Mar...

Bindlestiff (1983)

Nameless is hired by Miss Arlene Bradford to find her father, Charles Bradford. He has disappeared for good. Nameless has to act fast, as bodies start piling up.

Scenarios (2004)

A mostly excellent short-story collection containing some really fine writing. One tale, "Souls Burning," may be one of the best short stories I have ever read. The stories in this book were originally published over a span of more than 30 years, and it's interested to see how they reflect the ch...

The Crimes of Jordan Wise: A Novel (2006)

Jordan Wise is a mild-mannered accountant with a large San Francisco engineering firm in the late 1970s. By his own admission, the first thirty-four years of his life were dull, empty. But that all changes when he meets and falls in love with Annalise Bonner, an ambitious young woman who crav...

Blue Lonesome (1995)

Shamus Award-winner Bill Pronzini presents a stunning psychological study of one man's obsession and search for truth. Jim Messenger is a CPA who hates his job, loves jazz and can't forget the woman he saw eating at the Harmony Cafe. When the woman commits suicide, Messenger has to learn why, and...

Night Freight (2000)

An empty train yard at midnight. A small cabin bathed in the light of a full moon. A seedy Skid Row hotel in San Francisco. These are the places where fear lives. Collected for the first time are 26 terrifying stories that span nearly three decades in the career of this master writer of suspense ...

Shackles (1990)

Here is a list of all the books (in order) Happy Reading.1971tThe Snatcht Random Houset1973tThe Vanishedt Random Houset1973tUndercurrentst Random Houset1977tBlowbackt Ramdom Houset1978tTwospott Putmant1980tLaybrintht St. Martin's Presst1980tA Killing In XanadutWaves Presst1981tHoodwinkedt St. Mar...

Jackpot (1990)

Crazybone (2000)

Posh and affluent, a mecca for the horsy set, the California community of Greenwood hides its dirty laundry behind the stuccoed facades of Spanish-style houses and locks its secrets inside wrought-iron gates. Nameless knows that as well as 7 any, but he uncovers more deceit, adultery, fraud, and ...

Quicksilver (Nameless Detective)

Nor did the police have any concrete leads yet to the man who had used it. Those were the first two things we found out when we got to the Hall of Justice. Not from McFate; he wasn’t in yet, and he didn’t show up until after five. We learned them from Jack Logan, who for years had worked under Eb...

Strangers

Geek, liar, and the way I now saw it shaping up, a whole lot more. He owned a watch, all right, the flashy Omega that must have cost plenty more than a small-town mechanic and tow truck driver could afford on salary alone—a connection I should have made the first time I saw that damn chronometer ...

Fever: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Novels)

Neighborhood watering hole, the Rickrack, reminiscent in its old-fashioned ambiance, if not in its clientele, of the Washington Square Bar and Grill a couple blocks in the other direction. No loud music, no topless dancers, no sad-eyed voyeurs, no shill or bouncer. No local celebrities like Washi...

The Hidden (2010)

A martini for Shelby and half a glass of wine for him while good jazz played soft in the background—Macklin’s CD choice this time, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue. Crab salad, leftover sourdough, half a bottle of chardonnay. One of the DVDs from Ben’s collection, his choice again—a farcical boy-meets-...

Camouflage (Nameless Detective Mysteries)

Just two billable hours, in fact. That kind of speed is good for client relations and PR purposes, but it doesn’t do much for the agency’s bank account. We weren’t going to make much out of the extra document delivery charge, either. Surprise: Ms. McManus was alive and well and living in San Fran...

Acts of Mercy

Augustine was on his feet, about to approach the bar cabinet again because he had finished his drink and decided to permit himself a refill. He frowned as the knocking continued. Maxwell already? Well all right, he might as well get that over with; he felt relaxed enough now to deal with a lectur...

Undercurrent (The Nameless Detective)

The book was the only thing missing, nothing else had been touched, and it seemed obvious the balding man—it had to have been him, all right—had used the cover of darkness to come over the hedge or gate into the cottage's private rear garden. Favor had dusted the sliding door and the nightstand w...

Blowback (The Nameless Detective)

All of them were clapping their hands in time to the raucous music created by a pair of fiddlers up on the second-story veranda, and watching another guy and a girl in Western garb perform a high-stepping dance routine on top of the coach. A banner draped over the veranda railing said: Hangtown S...

Nightcrawlers: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Mystery)

Dead time, but necessary; until close of business there was always a chance, however small, that Tamara or somebody who knew her whereabouts might call. Then he switched on the answering machine, locked up, went down to the garage for his car. On his own time now. Ready to jump when Bill called, ...

The Jade Figurine

I had no idea how long I had slept—been unconscious —but the silence seemed deeper somehow, the way it gets well past midnight. Mosquitoes crawled and fed on my face, and I had no strength to brush them away. The fever burned brightly inside me. Rhythmic pain pulsated in my temples, my right arm....

Jackpot (Nameless Dectective)

Its fifteen stories vied for attention with the cluster of older high-rise resorts—Harrah’s, Harvey’s, High Sierra, Caesar’s Tahoe—on the quarter-square-mile “glitter strip” just across the Nevada line. Nonstop gambling action and star-studded live entertainment. Gaudy neon and a steady ebb and f...

Oddments

He was so startled, in fact, that he just stood there behind the plank and stared with his mouth hanging open.     It had been a rainy off-Monday exactly like this one the last time he'd seen DeBeque, and that night the guy had been about as low as you could get and carrying a...

Case File - a Collection of Nameless Detective Stories

This is the first question readers of the "Nameless Detective" series always ask. Well, I always answer, he's not really nameless; he has a name, just like everybody else, but I don't say what it is. Why not? they ask. Trying to capitalize on Hammett's Continental Op? I tell them no. Trying to es...

Savages: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Novels)

Come on come on come on—burn! “What’s taking so long? You sure you set the timer right?” “I know how to do it, don’t I?” “It’s been fifteen minutes already.” “I set it for twenty. I just wanted to be sure we had enough time.” “Shit. Fifteen was all we needed. What’s the matter with you?” “You kno...

Panic!

@page { margin-bottom: 5.000000pt; margin-top: 5.000000pt; } Three  The dark blue rented Buick Electra passed the intersection of the state highway and the county road leading to Cuenca Seco at four minutes past eight. Harry Vollyer shifted his weight lightly on the passenger side of the front se...

Sleuths (2011)

It was the last thing I expected to see and I leaned forward, squinting through the boat's Plexiglas windscreen. The weather was full of early-November bluster—high overcast and a raw wind—and the water was too cold and too choppy for pleasure swimming. Besides which, the red-haired guy was fully...

Hellbox (Nameless Detective)

Still an hour until first light, but I was all through sleeping. I hadn’t slept much, anyway. Mostly just dozing, snapping awake whenever a noise intruded or there was a spasming in my mind. Waiting in a twilight world for the footsteps that hadn’t sounded, the call that hadn’t come. The first th...

The Eye: A Novel of Suspense

WALLY SINGER When Marion announced that she was going to Brooklyn to spend the day with her sister, Singer barely managed to hide his elation. It surprised him. She didn’t get along with her sister; hell, she didn’t get along with anybody, the fat cow. But she was upset about the shootings, she s...

Gun in Cheek

The Saga of the Risen Phoenix   Norma Goold was the most beautiful corpse Allen Starke had ever beheld. When he had seen her, lithe and young and magnetically compelling, doing her number at The Gayety burlesque house a few hours previously, he had understood his friend Paul Cloud's infatuation w...

With an Extreme Burning

In the past he had always enjoyed it—all the activity on campus, the new faces, the fresh challenge of trying to cram familiar historical material into young minds that might, in a scant few cases, find it as exciting as he did. The prospect of facing this one had almost led him to call in sick t...

The Crimes of Jordan Wise

Thomas. The trades weren't blowing that day and the overheated air dripped with humidity, but she somehow managed to look cool and fresh in a white skirt and madras blouse and white straw hat. She was tanning already, too. I kissed her passionately right there in the lobby and I didn't give a dam...

Betrayers (Nameless Detective Novels)

Never fails. Seems like the thing is always silent until I’m in the car and driving and then it rings incessantly. Early start today. It was only eight fifteen. I could have let the call go onto voice mail, but I’m compulsive about answering the phone—a habit I picked up in the lean days when I f...

Bindlestiff (The Nameless Detective)

Kerry said. She seemed to think that was the most comical thing she’d ever heard; there were tears of mirth in her eyes. “Lord, I wish I’d been there to see it!” “It was some session, all right,” I said. “It must have been.” She wiped her eyes on her napkin, and then put one elbow on the table an...

Mourners: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Mystery)

Gooey fudge, whipped cream, about twenty thousand calories’ worth. But when she got to the apartment she couldn’t eat it. Two bites at the kitchen table, and her throat closed up and she pushed it away. All the weeks spent living on Slim-Fast to rid herself of twenty pounds of flab so she’d feel ...

Quincannon

Through the front window glass, Quincannon could see a man inside at the rear, working at the bulky black shape of a printing press. The mane of hemp-colored hair identified the man as Will Coffin. Quincannon entered. Coffin glanced over at him, said, “Good morning,” in gruff tones, but made no m...

Scenarios - A Collection of Nameless Detective Stories

That Sunday, the day before she died, I went down to Aquatic Park to watch the old men play bocce. I do that sometimes on weekends when I'm not working, when Kerry and I have nothing planned. More often than I used to, out of nostalgia and compassion and maybe just a touch of guilt, because in Sa...

Nightshades (Nameless Detective)

Bloom and her shotgun nearby, this was not the time to talk to them. The atmosphere in Musket Creek was every bit as hostile as Frank O’Daniel had suggested it would be; bringing Kerry along had definitely not been a good idea. I considered calling it quits for now and heading back to Redding. Bu...

Zigzag

The wide sandy beach below it on either side was a popular swimming and picnicking spot during the summer months; not much of it was visible now, with the water level up from the recent rains. Once you crossed the bridge, the main road looped to the right into and through the village center, but ...

Graveyard Plots

He was so startled, in fact, that he just stood there behind the plank and stared with his mouth hanging open.     It had been a rainy off-Monday exactly like this one the last time he'd seen DeBeque, and that night the guy had been about as low as you could get and carrying a...

Deadfall (Nameless Detective)

It was a cavernous place with an old-fashioned oiled, black-wood floor —a combination market, deli, butcher shop, and liquor store. The woman behind the grocery check-out counter was busy with a line of customers; I didn’t want to incur anybody’s anger by interrupting, so I wandered into the back...

The Stalker

Larry Drexel poured himself another glass of aquardiente, his third since he had arrived home, and resumed his restless pacing of the parlor’s Navajo rug. The pallid light from a lantern-style wall lamp made his face look grotesquely demoniac, like a sculpted burlesque of an entity from Dante’s I...

Step to the Graveyard Easy

Both from the same man. First one: “Cape, you know who this is. I’m in big trouble, I need to talk to you right away. Call me as soon as you get this. Don’t talk to anybody else first.” Followed by a local number and an extension. Second one: “Cape, where the hell are you? Call me!” Boone Judson....

Vixen

Tamara said when I finished giving her a short rundown of my interview with Cory Beckett. The woman’s apparent involvement with Andrew Vorhees didn’t surprise her any more than it had me. “Whatever she’s up to, you can bet it’s more than just being Vorhees’ mistress.” “If she is his mistress.” “O...

Nemesis

One of the two women employees told me he had “business in San Francisco” that morning and expected to return by one o’clock. Could she help me? Or did I want to leave a message for Mr. Canaday? I said no to both questions, that I’d check back early afternoon. Better to brace him cold. Scott Ostr...

The Other Side of Silence (2010)

Court Spicer first. Fallon asked for his description, since she had no photograph to give him. Average height. Lean and wiry, about 160 pounds. Black curly hair that he wore long, so long the last time she’d seen him that he’d had it in a ponytail. Clean-shaven then. Blue-gray eyes, very intense....

Labyrinth (The Nameless Detective)

I could see her from where I stood alone on the embankment thirty feet above, and I could watch the movements of the half-dozen Homicide cops and forensic people who were down there with her. One of the cops was Eberhardt. He knew I was waiting up here, but he had not paid any attention to me sin...

Small Felonies - Fifty Mystery Short Stories (2012)

Wallmann)   What I was doing, standing there in the shadow of a large oak at four o'clock on this clear moonlit morning, was considering the heist of a car. Not just any car, mind you, but a beautiful three-liter Lancelot Mark II, sitting in a secluded driveway less than a block away. The st...

Schemers: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Novels)

I said to Kerry that night after dinner, “and all I’ve got for the effort is a headache.” “Well, I hate to say it, but that could be because you’re trying to build a case where none exists.” “I don’t think so. Angelina Pollexfen could be guilty, sure, and the shooting could’ve happened the way Yi...

The Hangings

I waited for him, raised my hand when he neared and called out for him to stop. Then I asked him, straight out, how he had known there was a note tied to the rock chucked through Hannah's window. It took him aback; he was more mean than bright. But he covered up by saying, "I heard somebody say i...

Snowbound

He no longer had the savage headache of the night before, but he felt restless and edgy—an impotent, caged kind of feeling. Two sticks of marijuana hadn’t helped either, although the joints he had blown after their arrival last night had dulled his proclivity for violence and allowed him to sleep...