Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini. Forge, $25.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7653-8105-7
In MWA grand masters Muller and Pronzini’s sprightly fifth mystery set in late 19th-century San Francisco (after 2016’s The Plague of Thieves), Sabina Carpenter, an ardent suffragette, bicycling enthusiast, and self-described New Woman (“the term...
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Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini. Forge, $25.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-7653-8104-0
One of the ongoing mysteries in Muller and Pronzini's entertaining 1890s-era San Francisco whodunits may be resolved in the series's fourth entry (after 2015's The Body Snatchers Affair). In previous volumes, PIs Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon
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Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini. Forge, $25.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7653-3176-2
MWA grand masters Muller and Pronzini’s solid third mystery set in 1890s San Francisco (after 2013’s The Spook Lights Affair) finds the relationship between PIs Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon at a delicate juncture. Carson Montgomery, a...
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Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini. Forge, $24.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7653-3175-5
An intriguing mystery and a threat to San Francisco PI Sabina Carpenter’s career drive Muller and Pronzini’s engaging second late-19th-century historical starring her and partner John Quincannon (after The Bughouse Affair). The wealthy parents of 18-
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Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini. Forge, $24.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-7653-3174-8
Fans of Steve Hockensmith’s Holmes on the Range historicals will welcome this Carpenter and Quincannon novel, billed as the first in a new series from husband-and-wife MWA Grand Masters Muller and Pronzini (Beyond the Grave). In 1891, Sabina...
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Marcia Muller, Author, Bill Pronzini, Author Five Star (ME) $23.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-7862-1657-4
Along with four other volumes (not submitted for review but listed below), this collection launches Five Star's new series of library editions reprinting mystery short stories and original paperbacks. Here are 14 stories written--and now chosen for...
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Edited by Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar, read by Luke Daniels. Tantor Audio, , unabridged, 3 CDs, 3.5 hrs., $24.99 ISBN 978-1-4945-0863-0
This short anthology includes five
captivating tales of horror from great
contemporary writers, including Stephen King, Kelley Armstrong, and Ramsey Campbell. The tales are bound together by a theme of captivity in either a literal or metaphorical
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Bill Pronzini. Cemetery Dance (www.cemeterydance.com), $19.99 (192p) ISBN 978-1-58767-266-8
A missing-persons case takes Pronzini’s San Francisco PI to California’s sparsely settled northeast corner in this taut novella first published in 1993 and later expanded into the 1996 novel, Sentinels. Marian Shay retains the gumshoe after her...
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Bill Pronzini, Author . Carroll & Graf $24 (213p) ISBN 978-0-7867-0942-7
At age 60, Pronzini's Nameless Detective has been through the wars more than two dozen times in such singular mysteries as Crazybone
and Boobytrap. Now the San Francisco–based PI has acquired a daughter, a home and a name—"Dadd
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Bill Pronzini, Author Delacorte Press $17.95 (230p) ISBN 978-0-385-29896-4
Pronzini's ``nameless'' San Francisco detective and his partner Eberhardt are trying to prove that their client Thomas Lujack did not mow down his business partner with his car. Although he suspects his client's guilt early on, the 58-year-old...
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Bill Pronzini, Author Delacorte Press $18 (216p) ISBN 978-0-385-30519-8
Pronzini's ( Breakdown ) brisk, efficient, action-packed mystery is set on the earthquake-ravaged San Francisco waterfront and in the now-arid salad-bowl country to the south. Here the Nameless Detective hunts for a methodical, brutal stranger who...
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Bill Pronzini, Author Carroll & Graf Publishers $19.95 (275p) ISBN 978-0-7867-0139-1
The most intense writing in Pronzini's new novel is the title, which refers to a series of deaths by fire caused by an unknown villain in a California town. The story itself is mostly a lackluster working out of whodunit. Dix Malory begins to...
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Bill Pronzini, Author Carroll & Graf Publishers $20 (0p) ISBN 978-0-7867-0311-1
In his 23rd Nameless Detective novel, Pronzini (Spadework) sends his PI out to do battle with racism in rural Northern California. Nameless this PI may be, but he's not changeless. Over the years, he's given up smoking and changed his eating habits.
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Bill Pronzini, Author Carroll & Graf Publishers $23 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7867-0403-3
San Francisco's Nameless Detective faces tormenting decisions as he tackles two cases, one of which closes a troubled chapter in his own life. Nameless begins this dark tale (his 24th, following Sentinels) at the funeral of Eberhardt, his former...
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Bill Pronzini, Author Crippen & Landru Publishers $40 (200p) ISBN 978-1-885941-24-4
Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon are San Francisco-based detecting partners of the 1890s who have appeared in two Pronzini novels: Quincannon (1985) and Beyond the Grave (1986), coauthored by Pronzini's wife, Marcia Muller. In this collection of
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Bill Pronzini, Author Carroll & Graf Publishers $23 (208p) ISBN 978-0-7867-0730-0
Pronzini is a pro. His Nameless Detective is a characterful narrator, and the northern California settings, here as always, are splendidly realized. This time out an insurance company hires Nameless to check into why Sheila Hunter, a glamorous widow
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Bill Pronzini. Forge, $24.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-7653-2564-8
Pronzini's 36th Nameless Detective novel, though a marked improvement over its immediate predecessor, 2010's Betrayers, hardly reflects a return to form by the MWA Grand Master. This entry, like other recent books in the series, alternates between...
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Bill Pronzini. Cemetery Dance (www.cemeterydance.com), $19.99 (176p) ISBN 978-1-58767-267-5
At the start of this hard-edged novella from MWA Grand Master Pronzini, the unnamed PI hero of his long-running series (Hellbox, etc.) muses on femme fatales. After more than 40 years of detecting, Nameless never expected to cross paths with one,...
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Bill Pronzini, Author Delacorte Press $19.95 (230p) ISBN 978-0-385-30505-1
The 22nd addition to Pronzini's Nameless Detective library fits securely and gratifyingly into the classic detective story mold. So does the unnamed narrator: a tough, terse, hardworking and honorable PI who isn't very successful. Nameless doesn't...
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Bill Pronzini. Forge, $25.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-7653-2566-2
Jake Runyon, Nameless’s partner in his San Francisco detective agency, takes an extortion case in MWA Grand Master Pronzini’s solid 38th Nameless Detective novel (after 2012’s Hellbox). Verity Daniels, who recently came into money, receives a...
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Bill Pronzini. Forge, $24.99 (224p) ISBN 978-0-7653-3568-5
In the heavy-handed prologue of MWA Grand Master Pronzini’s 40th Nameless Detective novel (after 2014’s Strangers), the San Francisco PI links Cory Beckett, “a femme fatale in the classic mode,” with a “brand of evil like nothing I could ever have...
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Bill Pronzini. Forge, $24.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-7653-8103-3
This so-called novel in MWA Grandmaster Pronzini’s consistently superior Nameless Detective series (Vixen, etc.) consists of two new novellas and two previously published short stories set in the San Francisco Bay area. In the titular novella, the...
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Bill Pronzini. Bloomsbury, $26 (256p) ISBN 978-1-6328-6660-8
In the prologue of this disappointing standalone from MWA Grand Master Pronzini (The Hidden), two Santa Rita, Calif., cops inspect the dead body of Martin Torrey lying on a grassy riverbank. Whoever shot Torrey in the groin may have done so as an...
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Bill Pronzini, Author St. Martin's Press $16.95 (245p) ISBN 978-0-312-01818-4
An appearance by Pronzini's Nameless Detective is always a promising event; in his latest case, with its echoes of Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male, Nameless delivers on that promise with more punch and sensibility than ever. Kidnapped one winter...
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Bill Pronzini, Author . Walker $23.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8027-3375-7
This slim novel from a veteran of noir thrillers, including the Nameless Detective series, is as slick and plot driven as they come. Matt Cape is 35 and stuck in a rut: when his wife catches him in bed with another woman, he quits his job and takes...
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Bill Pronzini, Author . Carroll & Graf $25 (224p) ISBN 978-0-7867-1086-7
Hints of the Nameless Detective's death or forced retirement in his last book, Bleeders
(2002), turn out to be premature. (He isn't all that nameless, either—everyone calls him Bill. Could his last name be an Italian one ending in
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Bill Pronzini, Author . Walker $24 (213p) ISBN 978-0-8027-3381-8
Best known for his long-running (four decades) Nameless Detective series, the prolific Pronzini centers his latest stand-alone around three angry women who have all been duped by the same bigamist con man. Known variously as Burt Cord, Allan Cooney,
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Bill Pronzini, Author . Forge $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-7653-0931-0
The fast-paced latest in the longest-running PI series currently published shows Pronzini at the top of his form. Nameless's beat is the mean streets of San Francisco—but it's a vastly different city from the one inhabited by Sam Spade
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Bill Pronzini, Author . Forge $24.95 (285p) ISBN 978-0-7653-0932-7
The 30th outing for Pronzini's legendary Nameless Detective (after 2005's Nightcrawlers
) exhibits many of the strengths of his earlier adventures. Unfortunately, it also suffers from some of the diffuse softness of recent books about the...
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Bill Pronzini, Author . Forge $24.95 (300p) ISBN 978-0-765-30933-4
Tight writing and an unromantic portrayal of the work of a PI distinguish Shamus-winner Pronzini's solid 32nd entry in his Nameless Detective series (after 2006's Mourners
). Distracted by wife Kerry's bout with breast cancer, Nameless...
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Bill Pronzini, Author . Forge $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1818-3
Once again Pronzini, soon to be designated an MWA Grand Master, captures the quiet despair of his characters’ lives in the 33rd entry in his noirish whodunit series featuring the Nameless Detective (after 2007’s Savages
). Mitchell...
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Bill Pronzini, Author . Walker $24 (216p) ISBN 978-0-8027-1713-9
The client: a woman in peril. The case: a missing person. The hero: an investigator. The complication: thugs and secrets. MWA Grand Master Pronzini (The Crimes of Jordan Wise
) has used this recipe effectively for nearly four decades, including in...
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Bill Pronzini, Author . Forge $24.95 (302p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1819-0
In MWA Grand Master Pronzini's 34th Nameless Detective novel (after 2008's Fever
), his series sleuth takes on a challenging locked-room puzzle. When Gregory Pollexfen, a wealthy bibliophile, reports the theft of eight rare first edition...
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Bill Pronzini, Author Walker & Company $17.95 (182p) ISBN 978-0-8027-4082-3
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,...
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Bill Pronzini, Author Delacorte Press $19 (232p) ISBN 978-0-385-30504-4
With unerring plotting and an unabashedly retro narrative style, Pronzini ( Quarry ) moves his San Francisco-based ``Nameless Detective'' ever closer to the mortality the book's title suggests. Now nearing 60, work-driven, solitary and often scared,
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Bill Pronzini, Author Walker & Company $21.95 (207p) ISBN 978-0-8027-3268-2
In this top-notch thriller, the author of the Nameless Detective series combines the best elements of the psychological novel and the traditional whodunit and delivers them in classic noir tones. This hero has a name, Jim Messenger. He's a quiet,...
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Bill Pronzini, Author Walker & Company $21.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8027-3301-6
While some readers may resist the ending, Pronzini (the Nameless Detective series; Blue Lonesome, etc.) plays fair and spins a nifty page-turner. Fast-shifting first-person narratives from various characters (a lovelorn police chief, a spouse-battere
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Bill Pronzini, Author Avalon $23 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7867-0505-4
On a fishing trip to Deep Mountain Lake in the High Sierras, Pronzini's San Francisco-based Nameless Detective pursues a crash course with a psychotic bomber just released from prison and bent on revenge. Nameless, seen last in Illusions (1997), is...
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Bill Pronzini, Author Walker & Company $23.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8027-3330-6
Pronzini (A Wasteland of Strangers) appears determined to keep the noir tradition intact. His new novel, about two anguished men whose lives collide violently, could easily have been made into a black-and-white film starring Robert Mitchum, Victor...
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Bill Pronzini, Author Walker & Company $23.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8027-3353-5
A cancer-stricken father goes head-to-head with his daughter's abusive ex-husband in this sturdy, rewarding thriller by veteran Pronzini. Angela Hollis thinks she has escaped her obsessed second husband, David Rakubian, when she wins a divorce...
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Bill Pronzini, Author St. Martin's Press $14.95 (255p) ISBN 978-0-312-34457-3
For this collection, Pronzini, the prolific, award-winning West Coast mystery writer, has gathered 23 of his stories, all of which display his versatility, his clean, crisp narrative style, and his keen awareness of detail. These talesincluding...
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Bill Pronzini, Author St. Martin's Press $0 (269p) ISBN 978-0-312-02283-9
This is a collection of 50 very short, very good crime stories. Pronzini ( Deadfall, Shackles) here presents a variety of scenarios, written from a wide range of viewpoints and in a number of stylesusing no more than a few pages in each case. In...
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Bill Pronzini, Author St. Martin's Press $15.95 (212p) ISBN 978-0-312-18525-1
Pronzini's tough but likable Nameless Detective is back in another baffling and entertaining mystery that begins when the San Francisco PI witnesses the brutal shooting of Leonard Purcell, a prominent bisexual lawyer. Called upon by the dead man's...
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Bill Pronzini, Author Mysterious Press $15.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-89296-276-1
The prolific Pronzini not only writes a lot of mysteries (The Nameless Detective series), he obviously reads a lot of them toobut not all of what he reads is good. His 1982 Gun in Cheek was a wickedly humorous collection of unbelievable plots, poor...
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Bill Pronzini, Author, Bill Prozini, Author Delacorte Press $21.95 (215p) ISBN 978-0-385-30506-8
From a slapstick beginning to an edge-of-your-seat ending, Pronzini (Shackles; Demons) demonstrates why he remains such an enduring force in the genre. The 23rd adventure for his Nameless Detective opens as the California PI, approaching 60, marries
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Bill Pronzini, read by Nick Sullivan, AudioGo, unabridged, six CDs, 6.5 hrs., $19.95 ISBN 978-1-60998-035-1
Pronzini, best known for his praise-worthy 40-year-old Nameless Private Eye series, this time opts for an oddly bland stand-alone thriller that benefits considerably from Nick Sullivan's dramatic interpretation. The plot involves a sad sack with a...
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Bill Pronzini, Author, Barry N. Malzberg, Author Five Star (ME) $26.95 (250p) ISBN 978-1-59414-038-9
On Account of Darkness and Other SF Stories, by Barry Malzberg and Bill Pronzini, collects all 20 collaborative tales between these two genre pros, plus a novelette by Malzberg alone and five tales by Pronzini. Fans will be pleased to learn from...
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Bill Pronzini. Forge, $24.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-7653-2565-5
MWA Grand Master Pronzini has finally given his unnamed hero a name—Bill—but otherwise turns in a lackluster effort with the 37th entry (after 2011’s Camouflage) in a series that may have passed its sell-by date. Bill, the semiretired PI, and his...
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Pronzini, Author, Bill Pronzini, Author M. Evans and Company $14.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-87131-555-7
Three outlaws arrive in the country town of Big Tree, Calif., on a blazing hot day of a long dry summer, in this well-crafted western by veteran Pronzini ( The Last Days of Horse-Shy Halloran ). A huge shipment of munitions is a-sittin' in Big Tree...
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Bill Pronzini. Forge, $24.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7653-8818-6
The vitality and suspense that marked this long-running series are long gone, as shown by MWA Grand Master Pronzini’s 41st Nameless Detective novel (after 2015’s Vixen). James Cahill, a regional sales director, retains the San Francisco PI to find...
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Bill Pronzini. Forge, $25.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7653-9435-4
MWA Grand Master Pronzini’s lighthearted sixth mystery set in late-19th-century San Francisco (after 2017’s The Dangerous Ladies Affair) finds private investigators Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon working undercover at McFinn’s Gold Nugget...
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Bill Pronzini. Forge, $25.99 (240p) ISBN 978-0-7653-9437-8
MWA Grand Master Pronzini smoothly juggles several story lines in the rollicking seventh mystery featuring late-19th-century San Francisco detectives Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon (after 2018’s The Bags of Tricks Affair), each of whom is...
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Bill Pronzini. Forge, $26.99 (224p) ISBN 978-1-250-21648-9
Set in 1898, MWA Grand Master Pronzini’s delightful eighth Carpenter and Quincannon mystery (after 2019’s The Flimflam Affair) opens with a meeting at an exclusive San Francisco club between private detective John Quincannon and Everett Hoxley, “the
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Bill Pronzini. Forge, $24.99 (176p) ISBN 978-1-250-21650-2
Set in 1898, MWA Grand Master Pronzini’s routine ninth mystery featuring San Francisco PIs Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon (after 2020’s The Stolen Gold Affair) takes the married couple to Hawaii in pursuit of Jackson “Lonesome Jack” Vereen and
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Edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini. Hanover Square, $26.95 trade paper (400p) ISBN 978-1-335-04494-5
Anniversaries of all kinds are the source of mayhem for the 19 stories in this entertaining all-original anthology from MWA grand masters Muller and Pronzini (the Sabrina Carpenter series). Wedding anniversaries feature prominently, as in Max Allan...
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ARTICLES
