Finished this one a couple days ago. It's my first book by
Evans. It's about a private detective based in Chicago
searching for a missing girl from Kansas. Paul Pine is
knocked out a couple times, is first on the scene at more
than one murder, is framed for murder, sucks face with the
chicks and spars with the cops . In spite of cliches that
were well-worn even in 1949 when the book came out, Evans's
writing is sharp and moving and well worth reading.
The book follows a wayward daughter theme that has
well-served the best of them, including Hammett in THE DAIN
CURSE and Chandler in THE BIG SLEEP. Although Evans avoids
the bathetic extremes of Chandler, he follows Jim's Marlowe
Paradigm perfectly. He's a former law officer, he works in a
big American city, he is a single male, self-employed
detective, telling his story in first person. There was one
scene where he gets stinking drunk with someone's wife and
plays kissy face that reminded me a lot of a similar Chandler
scene.
I did have one other complaint about the book. Halfway
through the book I got the feeling that it was rolling
towards a particular ending, but I shrugged it off because I
thought it unbelievably corny. That was the ending.
I bought this book up in Chicago on a used book store tour
that Mark Blumenthal took me on. A great time and some great
books. Hope you're still on the list, Mark.
miker
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