Undercurrent: The Nameless Detective by Bill Pronzini

Nameless Detective #3

by Bill Pronzini

Newlywed Judith Paige hires Nameless to find out if her husband is having an affair. Nameless follows Walter Paige to a motel room in Cypress Bay, where Paige is murdered. Nameless must found out who murdered Paige, and investigates. As he investigates, the list of suspects grows.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Detective, Crime, Noir

Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Mystery Writers of America Awards "Grand Master" 2008
Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1999) for Boobytrap
Edgar Awards Best Novel nominee (1998) for A Wasteland of Strangers
Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (1997) for Sentinels
Shamus Awards "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) 1987
Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1982) for Hoodwink

Married to author Marcia Muller.

Pseudonyms:
Robert Hart Davis (collaboration with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)
Jack Foxx
William Jeffrey (collaboration with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)
Alex Saxon

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

None of first three Nameless Detective novels has exactly won me over, including this one--Undercurrent, the best of the bunch. Still, there is something about this detective—and his creator—that I like, and I’m going to keep reading the series anyway.

Undercurrent is based on a clever plot idea. Our detective, who shall remain Nameless, is spying on a possible cheating husband when the husband is murdered. In the murdered man’s room, Nameless finds an old paperback original, a murder mystery called The Dead and the Dying. Nameless is a collector of old pulp fiction, and knows this is an obscure, rare old mystery. Why would this man—who the detective knows is no reader—be carrying this old book around? Nameless doesn’t know, but figures this book may be a clue.

As I said, I’m not sold on the series yet. The prose does not sparkle, the descriptions are often too laborious, and the characters—except for Nameless himself—don’t quite come to life.

But the detetective himself is one of the reason I keep reading. He is old enough to know his way around, but is still vulnerable and naive. Why? Because he loves the old pulp detectives, and believes a detective should stand for something. He loves honest cops, a job well done, and living his life so that he can up every morning, look in the mirror, and not hate what he sees. He has earned my trust, and I think I’ll continue to follow him for at least a half dozen more adventures.

[Carla Remy · Rating 4 out of 5]

1973
This is the third book in the Nameless Detective series. The first one I did like, but they have gotten progressively better with 2 and 3. This one takes Nameless from San Francisco to a town called Cypress Bay, where he befriends a police detective named Quartermain and finds a couple corpses.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

'It was one of those jobs you take on when things are very lean. You want to turn it down- it's an old story, and a sordid one, and a sad one- but you know you can't afford to. The rent falls due in a few days and the savings account is all but depleted; you haven't worked in almost three weeks, and the boredom and the emptiness are beginning to take their toll. So you look into tear-filmed gray eyes, and you sigh, and you say yes...'
So begins another adventure for our lonely hero; a seemingly straightforward case of a suspicious wife and a wayward husband with mysterious weekend business trips. Nameless follows the husband all the way to Monteray and then it gets complicated. To be honest, although I love nameless, the plot to this one is an outright dud and too much of a stretch even for forgiving imaginations. It's also not helped by nameless falling into line with the local police chief, a guy called Quartermain. It transforms the format from the lone wolf P.I. into a straightforward police procedural with Nameless taking on the role of defacto Detective Sergeant.
There are good things still to be enjoyed from the writing. Dodgy plot aside I had a lot of fun trying to place Pronzini's little make-believe hamlet Cypress Bay but it's cleverly hidden away among a rash of equally make believe locations with interchangeable usages of the words Cypress, Grove, Ocean etc, with the occasional vague reference to a real location. And then there is the introduction of recurring character, and thoroughly fictional pulp hack, Russell Dancer. He's got a lot of interesting things to say about the publishing industry and the scenes with him alone with nameless are fascinating. Pronzini's prose is good too, dragging every last bit of loneliness from those views of the ocean and those wind shaped Cypress trees.

[Damo · Rating 3 out of 5]

It appears that Nameless is yet another private investigator who doesn’t like the surveillance jobs where one spouse suspects the other of cheating and wants proof. But the need to put food on the table means a job is a job and so, he finds himself following a man up the California coast to a remote holiday house.

Nameless explains his reasons for taking the case like this:

'It was one of those jobs you take on when things are very lean. You want to turn it down- it's an old story, and a sordid one, and a sad one - but you know you can't afford to. The rent falls due in a few days and the savings account is all but depleted; you haven't worked in almost three weeks, and the boredom and the emptiness are beginning to take their toll. So you look into tear-filmed gray eyes, and you sigh, and you say yes...'

The husband he’s following embarks on ‘business trips’ each weekend and his wife can see that around 200 miles has been added to the car on each trip. She wants Nameless to follow him to find out whether he is meeting up with someone.

He follows the man, named Walter Paige and settles in to watch and wait…and then suddenly realises he is only watching the front of the place and has left the back door wide open. When he creeps around to scope out the rear of the place he is floored to discover that Paige has been murdered right under his nose.

He calls in the local police and assists them with their investigation. This is actually a consistent way in which Nameless acts and is quite out of character compared to many other hard-bitten detectives. The case quickly moves from the realm of a private investigator to the more formulaic police procedural.

What they find in their investigation is a copy of an old mystery novel written by pulp author Russell Dancer. This aspect of the case really piques the detective’s interest, given the fact that he is an avid collector of pulp magazines.

The case moves forward at a measured pace as each successive lead is picked up, examined and then used to move on to the next. We are given the opportunity to get to know the detective in a great deal more detail, understanding his nature more fully and developing the foundation for becoming more fully invested in his success or failure.

I would consider this only a moderate success in terms of the case and the investigation that surrounds it. It tends to plod along and the secondary characters are barely there with little being revealed about any of them to give them any sort of depth or meaning. A saving grace and of far more value is the continued development of what would become a long-term character.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great pulp-noir story, with that '50ish, a little plump anonymous detective. Great sense of place in Monterey CA, in the early '70's. Prozini can write.

[LJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

UNDERCURRENT (PI-“Nameless”-No. Cal.-Cont)- G+
Pronzini, Bill – 3rd in series
Random House, 1973, US Hardcover

First Sentence: It was one of those jobs you take on when things are very lean.

“Nameless” is hired by a lovely young wife to find out whether her husband was being unfaithful. “Nameless” follows the husband to a hotel of cottages in Cypress Bay (Carmel), sees him meet with a bald man and return to his hotel room.

When, hours later, “Nameless” realizes the cottage may have a backdoor, he investigates and finds the husband has been murdered. An anomaly in the victim’s possessions is an old pulp detective novel by a writer who lives in the area.

There are a lot of wonderful and fun things about reading books in this series. The story takes place in the days where many men still wore hats, smoking was common, no one had cell phones and you couldn’t just look things up on the internet. The latter was really made apparent when the characters were trying to track down a copy of an old book and I think of how easy it is to do that these days. There is also an interesting commentary on the state of writers and publishers. The worry, during this time, was that television and computers would make writers of fiction and printed matter obsolete.

Pronzini, even in these early books, is a wonderful writer. His powers of descriptions add so much to his work. Although he renamed Carmel, I could envision exactly where the characters where. But more impressively, at one point he the fatigue that can overcome a detective while waiting for something to happen on a case. This particular story was not one of my favorite from Pronzini.

The plot felt overly contrived and unconvincing to me, but it was still very cleverly done and well written. Pronzini, particularly the “Nameless” series, is someone I always recommend.

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is a list of all the books (in order) Happy Reading.

1971 The Snatch Random House
1973 The Vanished Random House
1973 Undercurrents Random House
1977 Blowback Ramdom House
1978 Twospot Putman
1980 Laybrinth St. Martin's Press
1980 A Killing In Xanadu Waves Press
1981 Hoodwinked St. Martin's Press
1982 Scattershot St. Martin's Press
1982 Dragonfire St. Martin's Press
1983 Bindlestiff St. Martin's Press
1983 Casefile St. Martin's Press
1984 Quicksilver St. Martin's Press
1984 Nightshades St. Martin's Press
1984 Double St. Martin's Press
1985 Bones St. Martin's Press
1985 Grave Yard Plots St. Martin's Press
1886 Dreadfall St. Martin's Press
1988 Shackles St. Martin's Press
1988 Small Fellonies St. Martin's Press
1990 Jackpot Delacorte
1991 Breakdown Delacorte
1992 Quarry Delacorte
1992 Epitaths Delacorte
1993 Demons Delacorte
1995 Hardcase Delacorte
1996 Spadework Crippen & Landru
1996 Sentinels Carroll & Graf
1997 Illusions Carroll & Graf
1998 Boobytrap Carroll & Graf
1999 Sluths Five Star
1999 Duo Five Star
2000 Crazybones Carroll & Graf
2002 Bleeders Carroll & Graf
2003 Spook Carroll & Graf
2003 Scenarios Five Star
2005 Nightcrawlers Forge
2006 Mourners Forge
2007 Savages Forge
2008 Feaver Forge
2009 Schemers Forge
2010 Betrayers Forge
2011 Camouflage Forge
2012 Hellbox Forge
2012 Kinsmen Cemetery Dance
2012 Femme Cemetery Dance
2013 Nemesis Forge

[Jim Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story and liked the plot twist involving an old pulp fiction novel. But I think Pronzini went way overboard emulating the detailed descriptions that that were hallmarks of the early pioneers of crime fiction. The idea is the generate a feel for the environment that the story is taking place in but in this case there were just too many long descriptions of rooms and clothes. I think we can establish an atmosphere without describing every piece of furniture and window treatments or what the person was wearing down to their shoes and socks. If someone edited out 10% of these descriptive passages I would give it 4 stars. Take out 20%and it might have rated 5 stars.

[Marie-Antoinette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Judith Paige has been married to Walter Paige for 3 months, and the honeymoon appears to be over. Judith hires the Nameless Detective to find out why Walter has to take a "business trip" every weekend and adds over 200 miles to the mileage of their car. She suspects that he is having an affair and hires Nameless to follow Walter. This isn't Nameless' favorite kind of gig, but he has a soft heart for a girl like Judith, who seems wholesome and sweet and deserves better treatment from her husband.

Nameless follows Walter to a resort area and doesn't see any immediate indication of an affair. He's got Walter's room under surveillance, when it finally dawns on him that he can't see the rear entrance. When he goes to check it out, he finds something that he didn't want to-Walter's dead body and indications that there had been a female visitor. Was he killed by this unseen lover? Or is there something else going on? The only thing that seems out of place is a copy of an old pulp fiction book called The Dead and the Dying by Russell Dancer. Walter doesn't seem like the reading type.

As Nameless investigates, he finds out that Walter is not a very well-liked man. He had a way with the women. There are a group of people that associated with him in the past. Nameless works hand in hand with the cops to investigate the murder. Pronzini excels at depicting the course of the investigation, never slipping into having Nameless do anything that he shouldn't in the situation.

The book in question does have a clue that helps resolve the situation, but it's rather a stretch that several people were killed to cover up the clue.

[John Bunyan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Third Nameless Detective Novel- each one better than the last. This one is a little longer than the other at 213 pages and more developed.
The feel of the bills is close to Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer series although Nameless Durant get concussed even once but a bad guy.
I like that Nameless is not a tough, cocky PI and works well with the police.
One element of the plot concerns an old crime novel. How this works onto the story is clever but also a little far fetched - not so much that odd spoils the story though.
As he did in the second book, Pronzini goes overboard in trying to set a mood and an atmosphere. The writing should be spare and smooth. But he spends 3 paragraphs describing the client when it should have been done in one. And goes on about how old and depressed Nameless is. Once the story gets going, though, the writing is fine.
Nameless again spends too much time describing his smoking, coughing, tightness in his chest, and fear of cancer.

This book could be 4 stars but I expect later ones in the series might be better so I left room for improvement.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pronzini has found his groove with Nameless in this book. The melancholy and brooding is still there but gone is the indifference and detachment of the prior book. The pacing was much better and the plot stronger, the twist at the end was well executed. The characters were well drawn and possessed personalities.

[ElaineY · Rating 2 out of 5]

I lasted till around 75% and decided I had better books to listen to.

While Nameless is a nice-enough guy to hang out with, the story itself just wasn't compelling enough for me to want to spend more time on it than I already had.

Good as a cozies-for-men but not when I'm looking for something with a bit of suspense.

[Keith Lytton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Making my way through the early Pronzini "Nameless" series...very good story...interesting to read a book written in the 70's...remembering how it was...and feeling it and how the story would be so different if it was written thirty years later...great book!

[Betty Lou Gaines · Rating 5 out of 5]

You should not force me

To give you a written review. Can you please give me the option to choose? Thank you for your consideration.

[The Shayne-Train · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ol' Mr. Nameless does it again! Twisty turns and moral choices and lonely feelings abound!

[John Yelverton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a straight up private detective story. No muss. No fuss. So if you want to just kick back and read a standard detective story then this is the book for you.

[Jeff Tankersley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Undercurrent, Bill Pronzini (mystery)
Jeff Book Review #135

1973's "Undercurrent" finds the Nameless Detective hired by a suspecting housewife to investigate her husband's activities in 70's-era California. There's a tangled web of former friends, interrogations, lies and murder.

Verdict: Great prose and pacing as usual from Bill Pronzini in this pulp-inspired detective story.

Jeff's Rating: 3 / 5 (Good)
movie rating if made into a movie: R

[Maddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

RATING: 3.5

Judith Paige has been married to Walter Paige for 3 months, and the honeymoon appears to be over. Judith hires the Nameless Detective to find out why Walter has to take a “business trip” every weekend and adds over 200 miles to the mileage of their car. She suspects that he is having an affair and hires Nameless to follow Walter. This isn’t Nameless’ favorite kind of gig, but he has a soft heart for a girl like Judith, who seems wholesome and sweet and deserves better treatment from her husband.

Nameless follows Walter to a resort area and doesn’t see any immediate indication of an affair. He’s got Walter’s room under surveillance, when it finally dawns on him that he can’t see the rear entrance. When he goes to check it out, he finds something that he didn’t want to—Walter’s dead body and indications that there had been a female visitor. Was he killed by this unseen lover? Or is there something else going on? The only thing that seems out of place is a copy of an old pulp fiction book called The Dead and the Dying by Russell Dancer. Walter doesn’t seem like the reading type.

As Nameless investigates, he finds out that Walter is not a very well-liked man. He had a way with the women. There are a group of people that associated with him in the past. Nameless works hand in hand with the cops to investigate the murder. Pronzini excels at depicting the course of the investigation, never slipping into having Nameless do anything that he shouldn’t in the situation.

The book in question does have a clue that helps resolve the situation, but it’s rather a stretch that several people were killed to cover up the clue. I didn’t like this book as well as the previous book in the series, The Vanished, although I think the character of Nameless is a wonderful creation. I never really understood why Walter had married Judith. At times, Pronzini tried to wax eloquent on the “undercurrents” theme used for the title, but it felt totally artificial to me whenever he did that.

Undercurrent is the third in the Nameless Detective series which now numbers more than 25 books. It’s a good book but didn’t knock my socks off.

[John Grazide · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this guy. The story was an almost typical mystery, but the constant twists until the very end make it more. The writing is amazing.
This one finds nameless hired by a woman who thinks her husband is having an affair. And boy is he! But not your typical affair, he is also planning something. and as more people around him start dying and acting "off" the "something" seems to revolve around an old dime store detective story. And as attempts are made to destroy all available copies the feeling that time is running out increases. Did I mention the writing is amazing! Damn!

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#3 of the Nameless Detective series - this 1974 entry has Nameless continuing to improve as pulp writer Pronzini adjusts to the novel form.

Nameless Detective series - Newlywed Judith Paige hires Nameless to find out if her husband is having an affair. Nameless follows Walter Paige to a motel room in Cypress Bay, where Paige is murdered. Nameless must found out who murdered Paige, and investigates. As he investigates, the list of suspects grows.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very satisfying fast paced mystery. The story, which takes place in a fictional town near Monterey, hangs together well with all the loose ends properly tied up at the end.

[Metagion · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty good book, but it's somewhat dated; it came out in 1973 (yeah, I know!) so it has that "pulp noir" air about it, but I enjoyed it. A quick read too at 220+ pages. Great time waster :)

[Sally Plunkett · Rating 4 out of 5]

3rd of The Nameless Detective Series

[Carolyn Di Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I did not like this one as much as the last two, I still really, really enjoyed it and will be searching out the next one today!

[Eliana]

Old style detective series with excellent writing, plots and characters throughout

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good one featuring the nameless detective. I like that he's flawed and knows it. He collects pulp fiction from the 50s and he also lives it....nice.

[Gary Vassallo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. I found the Nameless Detective easy to like and I found the mystery very engaging and I couldn't put it down as I neared the conclusion. Keen to read more in this series.

[Cat. · Rating 3 out of 5]

not bad...

[Michelle]

Currently hooked on the "Nameless Detective" series.

[Clark Hallman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Undercurrent (Nameless Detective Book 3) by Bill Pronzini – I just finished reading Undercurrent, another enjoyable Nameless Detective novel. Unfortunately, I did not find it to be as interesting and gripping as the first two Nameless books. Of course, Prozini is a very popular and award winning author, who won the Mystery Writers of America "Grand Master" Award in 2008 and several Shamus Awards along the way. He knows how to craft a good mystery/crime story, but I found this one to be somewhat tedious instead of compelling. In this novel, Judith Paige hires Nameless to investigate whether her husband (Walter) is having an affair, which Nameless thought would be a routine task. However, Nameless follows Walter Paige to a motel room, where Paige is murdered. This embroils Nameless in a complicated plot containing a plethora of characters and suspects. Unfortunately, the plot just seemed to involve too many characters and it presented too much insignificant dialogue. It certainly wasn’t a terrible read, but it just didn’t grab my interest at times.