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Backtrack
Alan Tarr refuses to accept a police explanation of the death of his father, a small-time actor, and decides to investigate.
167 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
80 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Hansen
133 books157 followersJoseph Hansen (1923–2004) was an American author of mysteries. The son of a South Dakota shoemaker, he moved to a California citrus farm with his family in 1936. He began publishing poetry in the New Yorker in the 1950s, and joined the editorial teams of gay magazines ONE and Tangents in the 1960s. Using the pseudonyms Rose Brock and James Colton, Hansen published five novels and a collection of short stories before the appearance of Fadeout (1970), the first novel published under his own name.
The book introduced street-smart insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter, a complex, openly gay hero who grew and changed over the series’s twelve novels. By the time Hansen concluded the series with A Country of Old Men (1990), Brandstetter was older, melancholy, and ready for retirement. The 1992 recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Hansen published several more novels before his death in 2004.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.
The book introduced street-smart insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter, a complex, openly gay hero who grew and changed over the series’s twelve novels. By the time Hansen concluded the series with A Country of Old Men (1990), Brandstetter was older, melancholy, and ready for retirement. The 1992 recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Hansen published several more novels before his death in 2004.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 1, 2016
This was my first non Dave, Hansen and I wanted to see if the pull remained the same for me. I had no need to worry. In between Hansens I tend to forget how easy it is to read him. How he draws very clear pictures with very few words. Subtle, no overdrama. Hansen is able to create atmosphere, pictures effortlessly.
Self possessed Alan backtracks through his father's life seeking to get to know him, to see him, maybe find connections. His brain is able to handle all the stuff that comes his way but underneath all that self possession is just a young lad trying to find his way in this world.
I like how the plot and the characters were laid out. The last scenes remined me a bit of Rear Window.
August 31, 2016
I loved this book. I've read also the Dave Brandstetter series, and I don't agree with other reviewers, that this is totally different from other Hansen's books.
It is different because the main character here is Alan, a very believable 17 years old boy, doing stupid things like boys of that age can do, his smartness notwithstanding. I loved his humor.
But the poignant writing, the great descriptions, the clever plot, the emotional ride: all of this is there.
It was so gripping that I had to read it over three days because I obliged myself to stop reading as soon as I was starting to jump forward to see what was happening.
So, totally recommended, as much as the Brandstetter mysteries!
It is different because the main character here is Alan, a very believable 17 years old boy, doing stupid things like boys of that age can do, his smartness notwithstanding. I loved his humor.
But the poignant writing, the great descriptions, the clever plot, the emotional ride: all of this is there.
It was so gripping that I had to read it over three days because I obliged myself to stop reading as soon as I was starting to jump forward to see what was happening.
So, totally recommended, as much as the Brandstetter mysteries!
February 19, 2013
Ordinarily, I enjoy Hansen's books, and tasty prose is to be found in this one, as well. However, the young protagonist (knowingly) falls in love with the man who killed his father, and the murderer/lover proceeds to try to eliminate the protagonist in precisely the same manner as he had earlier killed the father... The murderer/lover then follows the protagonist's broken body to the hospital and stabs him in his hospital bed a half-dozen times... Oh, and the protagonist refuses to tell the police about any of this when the detective insistently questions him about it... Unfortunately, I found neither the main character nor the plot credible, and that is a cardinal sin in this genre. But Hansen still evokes a scene so well...
July 24, 2022
“THE PRETTY SIDE OF HANDSOME”
Backtrack opens with teenage Alan Tarr, the narrator, recuperating from wounds and broken bones. Alan doesn’t tell us how he got messed up. He is devotedly cared for by Catch, a black nurse, probably the only person whom Alan trusts.
When Alan was only several months old, Eric Tarr, his father, an actor, abandoned him and Belle, his mother. Eric never contacted Alan or wrote him a letter. Alan only knows his father from watching his movies on TV. When he sees a notice in the newspaper of his father’s death, apparently by suicide, Alan tells his mother that he wants to go to the funeral. He wants to learn more about his father. He’s skeptical that Eric Tarr killed himself: “You don’t kill yourself if anybody cares about you.”
Backtrack is not divided into chapters, only sections that begin with the first word in bold-faced capitals. Set in southern California in the 1970s, the novel teems with colorful characters with whom Alan comes in contact during his search to solve the mystery of his father’s death. Hansen’s prose is lean and, as a blurb on the back jacket cover of the hardcover edition of the novel describes it, “taut.” Hansen, as usual in his books, wonderfully describes the weather, the geography, exteriors and interiors (“everything looked as if a furniture company truck had just driven off with the wrappers”), with just the right few words. The dialogue relentlessly moves the story along.
While I read Backtrack, I kept thinking to myself that it frequently seemed a little over-the-top. But then I would remember that the book takes place in Hollywood and environs, where folks can be exaggerated and behave as if they’re following a script.
Eric Tarr was charismatic. He made a lot of enemies. One of the possible suspects in Eric’s death tells Alan, “Eric was a disease you don’t recover from.” Several times in the story, Alan says, “I wish I could like somebody that knew him.” People are constantly struck by Alan’s resemblance to his father: “small, and fair haired, and on the pretty side of handsome.” This can work in his favor at times, or at other times create difficulties. In spite of his youth, Alan is usually able to hold his own with most of the adults he meets during his quest to solve the mystery of his father’s death.
People tell Alan that his father was queer. Alan has his own issues about whether he might be queer, which creates a lot of tension between him and some of the characters. When he temporarily joins a group of hippies in Venice Beach, which “looked like a Disneyland discard,” an incident occurs that causes Alan to question a lot of things in his life.
Eventually, Alan reveals what led to and caused his injuries. He takes us back to his recuperation where he met him at the beginning of the novel. Then, he throws us into the action-filled conclusion of his story.
Backtrack is an unusual departure for Joseph Hansen. The novel contains all the usual characteristics of a Joseph Hansen mystery, but it is imbued with a sort of sadness that touched me. At the end, I wanted only the best for Alan Tarr.
Backtrack opens with teenage Alan Tarr, the narrator, recuperating from wounds and broken bones. Alan doesn’t tell us how he got messed up. He is devotedly cared for by Catch, a black nurse, probably the only person whom Alan trusts.
When Alan was only several months old, Eric Tarr, his father, an actor, abandoned him and Belle, his mother. Eric never contacted Alan or wrote him a letter. Alan only knows his father from watching his movies on TV. When he sees a notice in the newspaper of his father’s death, apparently by suicide, Alan tells his mother that he wants to go to the funeral. He wants to learn more about his father. He’s skeptical that Eric Tarr killed himself: “You don’t kill yourself if anybody cares about you.”
Backtrack is not divided into chapters, only sections that begin with the first word in bold-faced capitals. Set in southern California in the 1970s, the novel teems with colorful characters with whom Alan comes in contact during his search to solve the mystery of his father’s death. Hansen’s prose is lean and, as a blurb on the back jacket cover of the hardcover edition of the novel describes it, “taut.” Hansen, as usual in his books, wonderfully describes the weather, the geography, exteriors and interiors (“everything looked as if a furniture company truck had just driven off with the wrappers”), with just the right few words. The dialogue relentlessly moves the story along.
While I read Backtrack, I kept thinking to myself that it frequently seemed a little over-the-top. But then I would remember that the book takes place in Hollywood and environs, where folks can be exaggerated and behave as if they’re following a script.
Eric Tarr was charismatic. He made a lot of enemies. One of the possible suspects in Eric’s death tells Alan, “Eric was a disease you don’t recover from.” Several times in the story, Alan says, “I wish I could like somebody that knew him.” People are constantly struck by Alan’s resemblance to his father: “small, and fair haired, and on the pretty side of handsome.” This can work in his favor at times, or at other times create difficulties. In spite of his youth, Alan is usually able to hold his own with most of the adults he meets during his quest to solve the mystery of his father’s death.
People tell Alan that his father was queer. Alan has his own issues about whether he might be queer, which creates a lot of tension between him and some of the characters. When he temporarily joins a group of hippies in Venice Beach, which “looked like a Disneyland discard,” an incident occurs that causes Alan to question a lot of things in his life.
Eventually, Alan reveals what led to and caused his injuries. He takes us back to his recuperation where he met him at the beginning of the novel. Then, he throws us into the action-filled conclusion of his story.
Backtrack is an unusual departure for Joseph Hansen. The novel contains all the usual characteristics of a Joseph Hansen mystery, but it is imbued with a sort of sadness that touched me. At the end, I wanted only the best for Alan Tarr.
August 27, 2014
I'm baffled. That was one of the strangest books I've ever read. Certainly not like any other Hansen book I know (the Brandstetter series, Pretty Boy Dead, and Living Upstairs). Oh his writing prowess was on display in the scene-setting and in the series of character vignettes we get as Alan travels to and around LA meeting people in an effort to learn something about the father he never knew. But no one is completely likeable and there was some bizarre behavior that made me wonder if this was supposed to be a parody: the encounters with the odd bunch of stoners Alan hitches a ride with, a couple of characters who flip-flop on their sexuality so much that I'm still not sure what they are, and a couple of times when characters declared their love almost immediately. Just weird, over-the-top stuff that I don't associate with Hansen. I really don't know what to make of it.
December 22, 2019
***spoiler alert if you're worried about ruining the ending of a bad book from 1982***
i'm sorry can we just talk about how this is probably one of the worst books i've ever read
our dear protag alan is only 17, so everything that happens sexually is very illegal
he meets his father's ex-lovers & they're more than willing to sleep with alan, but mostly because he looks like his dad???? hello???? that seems predatory, weird, and creepy all at the same time. like the pool scene with tombstone & niles??!?!?!?! bad content
and also the one guy alan actually does sleep with is the guy that he knows killed his father??? homeboy....................that's not okay!!! you can't just sleep with someone that was in love with your dad & also killed him
this book had the potential to be cool! you investigate your dad's murder to find a string of ex-lovers and twisted affairs, one of whom might have killed him? incredible! including weird predatory behavior? not cool!
i'm sorry can we just talk about how this is probably one of the worst books i've ever read
our dear protag alan is only 17, so everything that happens sexually is very illegal
he meets his father's ex-lovers & they're more than willing to sleep with alan, but mostly because he looks like his dad???? hello???? that seems predatory, weird, and creepy all at the same time. like the pool scene with tombstone & niles??!?!?!?! bad content
and also the one guy alan actually does sleep with is the guy that he knows killed his father??? homeboy....................that's not okay!!! you can't just sleep with someone that was in love with your dad & also killed him
this book had the potential to be cool! you investigate your dad's murder to find a string of ex-lovers and twisted affairs, one of whom might have killed him? incredible! including weird predatory behavior? not cool!
November 9, 2017
This was hard to put down for sure! But unlike a traditional mystery. It reminded me of Pretty Boy Dead, the way it jumped back and forth through time. The fact that Alan is finding himself along the way to finding his father’s killer, that people try to take advantage of him, or want to hurt him sexually, will make it difficult to recommend. However, that doesn’t mean this isn’t a fantastic little novel, because it is! I enjoyed it very much. I love Hansen’s writing style, and admit that several times I expected Dave Brandstetter to show up, walking out of a box canyon or something. Lol. Mythical creature that Dave is. :-)
August 9, 2021
Hansen has an elegant yet economic way with words and his facility in that terse, hard boiled style is a delight to behold. That said, certain aspects of this novel haven’t aged well, particularly some of the race and sexuality stuff. The main character is completely unbelievable as a teenager, reminding me of the teen age noir film “Brick” more than anything else.
I’m glad I read it but I would hesitate to recommend it to all but acknowledged Hansen fans.
I’m glad I read it but I would hesitate to recommend it to all but acknowledged Hansen fans.
September 1, 2024
I found this to be a great book . I really like the pace and the way the plot was unfolded. Hansen has an easy style that is enjoyable and revealing. Time has shown how he created a narrative where queer characters were just characters in an everyday world. It feels right considering it was written in a time where this was not the case. Hansen should go down as a literary hero for the queer community and hopefully beyond that. He deserves the recognition and respect.
August 28, 2017
My second read (first read in the early 80s) and not as good as other Hansen mysteries -- the characters ring less true than in his other works. A standout among several examples: the protagonist, a 17-year-old, talking like a jaded wise-guy private eye to the police detective investigating his father's death? Not likely. This felt like it was hammered out too quickly. An unsatisfying read.
January 10, 2024
Extremely dated, in some good ways (Hansen nailed a tarnished 70s-80s Hollywood like few others) and in some Oh NO ways (the casual racist epithets for a start), but I am a sucker for a sun-drenched hardboiled noir, and while elements of this revolve around plot twists that feel a little hokey in retrospect, they work on the page.
September 4, 2020
One of Hansen's non-Brandstetter stories. There is mystery involved, delivered through a series of flashbacks interspersed with an increasingly tense present. Not my favorite Hansen book, but still head and shoulders above a lot of the current crop of gay-themed mysteries.
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July 5, 2025Not my favorite of Hansen's. The predatory behavior didn't sit well with me. The first person POV made for a nice change, but I believe he can do better.
July 31, 2009
I love Joseph Hansen's writing.
December 21, 2010
If Ross Macdonald wrote a mystery in Dennis Cooper's universe... it's farcical how every adult who knew the hero's late murdered father tries to make a pass at the son!
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews