I just finished reading my first "Nameless" mystery today,
the (I believe) first in the series: _The Snatch_. I know
nothing about San Francisco, never having been there, but the
book certainly seemed hardboiled enough to me. Here we've got
a detective who has essentially patterned his life after his
beloved pulp magazine heroes, losing a long-time girlfriend
in the process (she's tired of his adolescent yearnings to be
one of the heroes in said magazines). Nameless has a good
relationship with the local police force, having spent
fifteen years as a policeman himself. He smokes way too
much--throughout the book, he's constantly thinking about the
harsh, rasping cough that accompanies each smoke and
wondering if he should have a chest exam. One thing that I
did wonder about though, is that he's 47 years old in this
book and I know there are at least another twenty or so in
the series--how does Pronzini handle this aspect of his
character? Does Nameless age? Does he basically stay the
same? By the end of _Crazybone_, he'd be in his 80s.
Incidentally, I thought _Crazybone_ was to be the end of this
series, but I just checked Amazon and see there's a new one,
entitled _Bleeders_, due in January '02.
Craig Larson Trinidad, CO
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