Stand-Up (Walker Mystery) - Hardcover

Randisi, Robert J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802731961 ISBN 13: 9780802731968

Publisher: Walker & Co, 1994

Synopsis

Life's good for Miles Jacoby: He's just been offered a partnership in a major investigatory agency in New York, his Village bar is becoming a popular watering hole, and he's got two cases.
First, he's hired to find out who stole Stan Waldrop's act - literally. The standup comic's new routine was on Waldrop's hard disk. Now it isn't. Soon, Waldrop isn't standing up, either.
At the same time, a murder suspect is playing dumb - being a stand-up guy and refusing to name names. Jacoby knows who isn't being named and has to find him before the name shows up in the obits.
Well, maybe life isn't all that good: These are not the cases that dreams are made of. They're dirty and deadly and the bread-and-butter of life on the mean streets - even those with comedy clubs on every corner.

About this title

About the Author

Robert J. Randisi is the founder and executive director of the Private Eye Writers of America.

Reviews

In this hip but ho-hum tale, Randisi's third Miles Jacoby mystery (Separate Cases; Hard Look), the Manhattan PI juggles two cases. One has him searching for a missing pal who supposedly can alibi a murder suspect; the other sends him hunting for a stand-up comic's missing jokes, apparently stolen out of a computer. Jacoby also runs his bar, Packy's, and considers a proposed partnership with Gotham's star investigator, Walker Blue. While chasing clues from the Russian Tea Room to the Stage Deli, Jacoby drops a slew of names-major players, minor players, walk-on cops, old dead friends (at least 45, not counting celebrities)-that slow the narrative to a crawl, in spite of Randisi's short, snappy chapters. Murders, a vicious beating and a quick trip to Vegas don't enliven the pages much. Brooklyn-born Randisi, who lives in St. Louis, sounds like he's missing his native soil.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Walker Blue, New York City's premier investigator, wants to take on Miles Jacoby as a partner, but first Miles (Hard Look, 1993, etc.) has to clear his ledger of two cases. The first involves Stan Waldrop, the stand-up comic with a bad memory whose request that Miles find his stolen computer joke file comes to a premature climax when Stan's killed in his dressing room at The Comic Look. The second concerns Miles's old friend Ray Carbone, who's gone AWOL instead of providing the alibi his buddy Danny Pesce says would spring him from the Tombs, where he's being held for killing bookie Michael Bonetti. Fans of Miles's earlier exploits won't expect the two cases to have anything to do with each other, and they'll be right; the only links are in Miles's inimitably flat narration, pointless interrogations, and ham-handed repartee (``Why were you going to try to seduce me the other night?'' he asks Stan's agent after a tender scene at her apartment withers under his forthright questioning). All the gestures of the classic private-eye novel with none of the conviction that would make them tell. Though Miles does rouse himself to do some actual detective work on both cases before he hangs up his hat, the biggest mystery here is why Walker Blue would ever want this nebbish for a partner. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Stan Waldrop didn't exactly die laughing . . . his jokes weren't so bad that he "died" onstage, either. But shortly after he hired New York City private eye Miles Jacoby to help recover his stolen joke file, he suffered a nonmetaphoric death via a blow to the head. Jacoby figures he ought to work off his advance money, so he pokes around, annoys the cops, and manages to get beat up a couple times himself. Meanwhile, Miles' best friend has disappeared, and Miles takes it upon himself to find him before the bad guys do. Floating around the periphery is the issue of Miles' independence. Aging but legendary private eye Walker Blue has offered Miles a partnership in his agency, prompting some serious soul-searching. Randisi is the founder of the Private Eye Writers of America, and it's very apparent he understands the genre. Writing a private-eye novel is like singing an old blues standard: it's a balancing act in which you must simultaneously pay homage to the past masters and make the song your own. Chandler and Hammett would approve of the way Randisi bends his notes. Wes Lukowsky

Edition details

• Publisher: Walker & Co
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802731961
• ISBN 13: 9780802731968
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 242