Cases - Hardcover

Gores, Joe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0892965932 ISBN 13: 9780892965939

Publisher: Mysterious Press, 1999

Synopsis

Pierce Duncan, a young man just out of Notre Dame, sets off for the roads & rails of postwar America. It leads to strange & fateful meetings with individuals along the way; the most influential encounter is with a hard-nosed private eye who changes Pierce's life forever, leading him to San Francisco, where he must decide his ultimate path.

About this title

Review:

Joe Gores, who has won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award three times in his long career, says about his latest book, "In Cases I have tried to mix fact and fiction so thoroughly that nobody--not even myself--can now untangle them." No wonder this wide-ranging saga of a young man's entry into the life of a San Francisco private detective has a fragmented, often familiar feel to it. Bits of real life and enhanced memory seem to have become mixed up with the many films noir that Pierce Duncan enjoys on his journey from Notre Dame to Baghdad by the Bay.

There's the Georgia chain-gang movie, where convicts murder a cruel guard; the Las Vegas crime-and-boxing movie, where an honest pug dies rather than throwing a fight; the Los Angeles religious cult movie, where a young man finds love among the loonies. And finally, there's the movie that Gores has been acting out, and writing down so well, for most of his professional life: the San Francisco private-eye film: part homage to Hammett, but mostly his own richly detailed vision of the world of skip-tracers, hired guns, sexy dames named April and Sherry, and corruptible gumshoes like the memorable Drinker Cope.

Cases may be a less-than-perfect novel, but it's definitely a valuable addition to our knowledge of Gores. It reads best as the source of local color for his greatest hits--from Hammett and Dead Skip to the more recent Menaced Assassin and Contract Null & Void. --Dick Adler

From the Publisher:

"In CASES I have tried to mix fact and fiction so thoroughly that nobody - not even myself - can now entangle them," writes three-time Edgar winner Gores in an author's note to this intermittently gripping, semiautobiographic saga of a young man's entry into the life of a San Francisco PI. The entanglement is part of the problem: on his journey from Notre Dame to Baghdad by the Bay, bits of real life and enhanced memory seem to have become mixed up with the many films noir that Pierce Duncan enjoys. There's the Georgia chain gang movie, in which convicts murder a cruel guard; the Las Vegas crime and boxing movie, in which an honest pug dies rather than throw a fight; the Los Angeles religious cult movie, in which a young man finds love in a cloud of cuckoos. And, finally, there's the movie that Gores (who has worker as a PI) has been acting out, and writing down so well, for most of his professional life; the San Francisco PI film - part homage to Hammett, but mostly his own richly detailed vision of the world of skip-tracers, hired guns, sexy dames named April and Sherry and corruptible gumshoes like the memorable Drinker Cope. Gores is a master of noir fiction, an exuberant practitioner of staccato prose deepened by occasional moral reflection. This novel, while rich in atmosphere pleasures and sharp character sketches, is less meaty with plot. It reads best as the source of local color for such Gores classics as DEAD SKIPS.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mysterious Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0892965932
• ISBN 13: 9780892965939
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368