The Hangings - Softcover

Pronzini, Bill

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345363957 ISBN 13: 9780345363954

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1990

Synopsis

Marshal Eden McCabe is baffled by the hanging of Frank Badger, and the situation only worsens when Frank's brother Jack comes to town and is also hanged, leaving McCabe to figure out a motive for the townspeople's vendetta

About this title

About the Author

Bill Pronzini is simply one of the masters. He seems to have taken a crack at just about every genre: mysteries, noirish thrillers, historicals, locked-room mysteries, adventure novels, spy capers, men's action, westerns, and, of course, his masterful, long-running Nameless private detective series, now entering its fourth decade, with no signs of creative flagging. He's also ghosted several Brett Halliday short stories as Michael Shayne for Mike Shayne's Mystery Magazine, and has managed to collaborate with such fellow writers as John Lutz, Barry Wahlberg, Collin Wilcox and Marcia Muller. Still, if he never ventured into fiction writing, his non-fiction work, as both writer and editor, would still earn him a place in the P.I. genre's Hall of Fame. Besides his two tributes to some of the very worst in crime fiction (what he calls "alternative classics"), Gun in Cheek and Son of Gun in Cheek, and one on western fiction (entitled Six Gun in Cheek, naturally), he's the co-author (with Marcia Muller) of 1001 Midnights. The Mystery Writers of America have nominated him for Edgar Awards several times and his work has been translated into numerous languages and he's published in almost thirty countries. He was the very first president of the Private Eye Writers of America, and he's received three Shamus Awards from them, as well as its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987.

From Publishers Weekly

Rivalling Quincannon and Pronzini's other western mysteries, his latest conveys the atmosphere of small-town northern California in the late 1890s. The constable of Tule Bend, Linc Evans, describes eerie events set off by the hanging of a stranger, Jeremy Bodeen, followed by that of his brother when he arrives in town after being wired the bad news. A third hanging brings no clue to the apparently invisible hangman's identity nor hint of the reason for the crimes. Accused by the sheriff and the mayor of dragging his feet, Linc hunts the elusive killer while also taking time to visit his secret sweetheart, Hannah Dalton. Hannah and her only female friend, Mrs. Jubal Parsons, are both considered "scarlet women" by Linc's sister and her envious clique. Ashamed of not courting Hannah openly, Linc learns a lesson from the denouement, a real shocker.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0345363957
• ISBN 13: 9780345363954
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English