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Moses Wine #1
The Big Fix
A marijuana-smoking private detective helps a liberal presidential candidate rid himself of unwanted endorsements by West Coast radicals
208 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
October 25, 2019
Moses Wine, detective. Simon's creation is a sclubb between eras, a cast off of the sixties and a wary voyager into the advancing decades.
Simon is a fast read. The characters interesting, but not deep. Some plot complications are contrived. But overall the book was a worthwhile diversion.
Simon is a fast read. The characters interesting, but not deep. Some plot complications are contrived. But overall the book was a worthwhile diversion.
June 20, 2011
UPDATE: Reading a passage in Nolan's bio about Roger Simon's friendship with Ross Macdonald made me think I ought to review Simon's The Big Fix. Lo and behold I already had two and a half years ago. Whoops---but hey, at least I remember what happens in the book. And it's a nice opportunity to repost in case anybody's looking for a quick, fun throwback. Honestly, this is sorta proto-Inherent Vice.
Original Rev:
Just by a fluke I happened to remember that I'd seen the movie adaptation of The Big Fix about 30 years ago (when I was but a peewee) and liking its take on the 60s, especially the seen in which Moses Vine gets emotional over film of anti-war protestors singing "Give Peace a Chance." Strikingly, the movie is not available on DVD, so I decided on a whim to track down the original novel. My 1973 first edition has a different cover than the reprint here---much more period, with a Jewfro'd Moses taking a hit off a doobie (remember that archaism?) and a femme fatale lurking in the background. I plowed through the book in a single night of insomnia. It's a fun, fast read, though, inevitably, a bit dated: the major plot circles around the search for an Abbie Hoffman-like radical who's gone underground. (Murray F. Abraham played him in the flick, while Richard Dreyfuss---in his pre-asshole phase---made for a great Moses Vine). The book is pretty harsh on Hoffman-style leftists, lampooning their pretentions, so in retrospect the book can seem a tad ungenerous considering the good Hoffman did in the years between he turned himself in in '81 and his suicide seven or eight years later. (I heard him lecture at Mizzou in 83 when I was a freshman and thought he was cool). That said, Roger Simon manages to blend Raymond Chandler and 70s ennui in a thoroughly enjoyable way in this story of political intrigue---if you ever wondered what it'd be like if Philip Marlowe solved crimes with the help of a hash-pipe, this period piece will show you.
Original Rev:
Just by a fluke I happened to remember that I'd seen the movie adaptation of The Big Fix about 30 years ago (when I was but a peewee) and liking its take on the 60s, especially the seen in which Moses Vine gets emotional over film of anti-war protestors singing "Give Peace a Chance." Strikingly, the movie is not available on DVD, so I decided on a whim to track down the original novel. My 1973 first edition has a different cover than the reprint here---much more period, with a Jewfro'd Moses taking a hit off a doobie (remember that archaism?) and a femme fatale lurking in the background. I plowed through the book in a single night of insomnia. It's a fun, fast read, though, inevitably, a bit dated: the major plot circles around the search for an Abbie Hoffman-like radical who's gone underground. (Murray F. Abraham played him in the flick, while Richard Dreyfuss---in his pre-asshole phase---made for a great Moses Vine). The book is pretty harsh on Hoffman-style leftists, lampooning their pretentions, so in retrospect the book can seem a tad ungenerous considering the good Hoffman did in the years between he turned himself in in '81 and his suicide seven or eight years later. (I heard him lecture at Mizzou in 83 when I was a freshman and thought he was cool). That said, Roger Simon manages to blend Raymond Chandler and 70s ennui in a thoroughly enjoyable way in this story of political intrigue---if you ever wondered what it'd be like if Philip Marlowe solved crimes with the help of a hash-pipe, this period piece will show you.
November 15, 2009
First published in 1973, this debut title in the PI Moses Wine series is a fun read though a little rough around the edges. Moses is a Jewish, hippie-type based in L.A. and is fond of his pot and hashish smoking. This time he's involved in solving the threats made to a presidential campaign. I guess this book is what is called "medium-boiled"--Moses can get tough when the need arises. In a number of places, the author writes with brilliant strokes. The series probably improves in the subsequent books, if you can find them.
July 1, 2019
I picked up this book because I recently watched the movie and liked it well enough, but was disappointed in some major aspects that I thought could have been better in book form. To my surprise, quite a lot of this story changed from page to screen, almost all of it for the better.
In the book, Moses Wine is your typical hard-boiled detective, with lip service being paid to his radical past and hash-smoking present. But for the most part he just acts like your standard shamus. Richard Dreyfuss gives the character a little more actual personality. Both versions have the character Lila Shea (which just sounds like an Inherent Vice character), but the film wins here because she's actually, y'know, a living character, not a dead woman plot device.
The film, naturally, streamlines the book's plot majorly, and this is also pretty welcome. The book plot isn't too hard to follow for the most part, but is just so convoluted. And the film makes a pretty major, spoilery change to one of the characters that I can't go into detail about, but that feels way more thematically resonant than anything that's in the book.
Overall it's a breezy read and if I wasn't familiar with the adaptation I might have enjoyed it a little bit more, but it's for the most part a warmed-over pastiche of better material.
In the book, Moses Wine is your typical hard-boiled detective, with lip service being paid to his radical past and hash-smoking present. But for the most part he just acts like your standard shamus. Richard Dreyfuss gives the character a little more actual personality. Both versions have the character Lila Shea (which just sounds like an Inherent Vice character), but the film wins here because she's actually, y'know, a living character, not a dead woman plot device.
The film, naturally, streamlines the book's plot majorly, and this is also pretty welcome. The book plot isn't too hard to follow for the most part, but is just so convoluted. And the film makes a pretty major, spoilery change to one of the characters that I can't go into detail about, but that feels way more thematically resonant than anything that's in the book.
Overall it's a breezy read and if I wasn't familiar with the adaptation I might have enjoyed it a little bit more, but it's for the most part a warmed-over pastiche of better material.
June 22, 2018
A couple of years ago, the Castro had a double bill of "The Long Goodbye" and "The Big Fix". I remember leaving the theater with two thoughts: that I still (on a fifth or sixth viewing) really hated "The Long Goodbye" (despite noticing that Jim Bouton plays Terry Lennox, which I'm pretty sure I'd noticed before but had forgotten), and that Elliot Gould would have been an infinitely better choice to play Moses Wine than smirky Richard Dreyfuss.
I read this book 25 or so years ago, along with all the rest of the Moses Wine books, and enjoyed it at the time. It remains enjoyable, but is improved by seeing how Pynchon took the basic elements of the book and ran with them to much better effect in Inherent Vice.
I read this book 25 or so years ago, along with all the rest of the Moses Wine books, and enjoyed it at the time. It remains enjoyable, but is improved by seeing how Pynchon took the basic elements of the book and ran with them to much better effect in Inherent Vice.
June 24, 2020
I'm not revoking my 5 stars for fully-hits-its-target. But lying awake just now, I realized I didn't entirely like this one.
Even given that casual violence against defenseless targets is genre-appropriate, I can't approve. I'm sure that strangling a recalcitrant clerk with his own necktie is some people's wish-fulfillment fantasy, but it's not mine. And speaking of wish-fulfillment fantasies, how's sex with a sincerely appreciative prostitute--on somebody else's dime no less. Or a long run on a glorious stolen motorcycle.
BtW, I'm amused that this was nostalgic about the '60s in '72 or so, when they were chronologically but not societally over yet.
Even given that casual violence against defenseless targets is genre-appropriate, I can't approve. I'm sure that strangling a recalcitrant clerk with his own necktie is some people's wish-fulfillment fantasy, but it's not mine. And speaking of wish-fulfillment fantasies, how's sex with a sincerely appreciative prostitute--on somebody else's dime no less. Or a long run on a glorious stolen motorcycle.
BtW, I'm amused that this was nostalgic about the '60s in '72 or so, when they were chronologically but not societally over yet.
November 20, 2020
In political times such as these, even with Biden's triumph, I'm reminded at how The Bad Guys often win. Never underrate the power of folks to harness racial backlash into a counterrevolution. It happened with Trump's election and it happened 40 years ago with Nixon. Moses Wine, a failed hippie and uninspiring PI, gets hooked up in a case in a novel that's pure 70s. Political and examining social issues, this well written yet brief tale was right up my alley. Racist and sexist at times, which sucks but overall, I liked this one a lot. I feel like Thomas Pynchon might owe Simon royalties for Inherent Vice.
October 25, 2024
IF SAM SPADE WERE REINCARNATED IN L.A. TODAY, WHAT WOULD HE LOOK LIKE?
He'd look like Moses Wine, a shaggy Scorpio with a nose for trouble. He's been through the Free Speech Movement, Civil Rights, Peace, the Hell's Angels, LSD--even law school. Not he's a dropped-out, debt-ridden, divorced, dope-smoking dick. And he's on a new case. This one involves political sabotage, a Satanist cult in the Hollywood Hills, a fatally beautiful Chicana, and a Harpo Marx-style radical who may have turned mad bomber!
[back cover blurb]
He'd look like Moses Wine, a shaggy Scorpio with a nose for trouble. He's been through the Free Speech Movement, Civil Rights, Peace, the Hell's Angels, LSD--even law school. Not he's a dropped-out, debt-ridden, divorced, dope-smoking dick. And he's on a new case. This one involves political sabotage, a Satanist cult in the Hollywood Hills, a fatally beautiful Chicana, and a Harpo Marx-style radical who may have turned mad bomber!
[back cover blurb]
August 14, 2025
Moses Wine took me on a journey through what felt like an action packed movie. I felt like I was right next to him as he navigated through LA and Nevada trying to figure out who was sabotaging the Hawthorne campaign.
I found The Big Fix at the used book store. I picked this book because of the cover and it looked like a fun engaging story. My assumptions were correct.
Easy read to finish out the summer reading program.
I found The Big Fix at the used book store. I picked this book because of the cover and it looked like a fun engaging story. My assumptions were correct.
Easy read to finish out the summer reading program.
August 13, 2017
The story takes place in California during presidential primary season of 1972 [no actual politicians are portrayed]. The book is a spiritual descendant of The Big Sleep and the spiritual ancestor of Inherent Vice. Not real deep, but fun nevertheless.
August 6, 2019
Three stars is generous. I read it because Ross MacDonald gave it a rave review, but it's nowhere near the quality of a MacDonald novel. The first 75% was good, but then it devolved into a ridiculous last quarter that wouldn't have been out of place in TJ Hooker or CHIPs.
April 6, 2017
It should not have been such a surprise. A murder mystery I’d found hilarious shortly after its publication in 1973 left me cold in 2016. The Big Fix was the first of seven novels in Roger L. Simon‘s series featuring private eye Moses Wine. Set in L.A. in 1972, the book was a nonstop celebration of the drug-addled culture of the 1960s. I should have left it behind with pretty much everything else in that era. History looks better in hindsight.
The plot at the core of the book is strong. The story is full of suspense, and it holds up well as a murder mystery. It’s likely to keep any reader guessing until the book’s final chapters. But the fixation on sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll gets in the way.
Moses Wine is broke. Even though he has little respect for mainstream politics and a long history of radical activism, Moses finds it impossible to turn down an assignment from the Presidential primary campaign of a Democrat whose policies closely resemble those of George McGovern. Senator Miles Hawthorne is on the cusp of gaining the Democratic nomination for President when flyers start appearing in Los Angeles associating him with a notorious radical. The flyer claims that Howard Eppis, chairman of the Free Amerika Party and author of Rip It Off, has not just endorsed Hawthorne but that his election will result in converting the country into a Communist state. (Eppis, of course, is a stand-in for the Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman, author of Steal This Book! It turns out, as we learn in an author’s note at the end, that Simon knew Hoffman.) Moses’ assignment is to track down Eppis and stop him from sabotaging the Hawthorne campaign.
The complicated story that follows involves Moses’ old girlfriend from Berkeley, a multimillionaire music producer, and the cast of a radical Chicano acting troupe. (The latter could only be, faintly disguised, the then-famous Teatro Campesino that figured prominently in organizing farmworkers in California.) For anyone who lived through that time as an adult, there are rewards to be found in The Big Fix. But the book conjured up more bad memories than good ones for me.
The plot at the core of the book is strong. The story is full of suspense, and it holds up well as a murder mystery. It’s likely to keep any reader guessing until the book’s final chapters. But the fixation on sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll gets in the way.
Moses Wine is broke. Even though he has little respect for mainstream politics and a long history of radical activism, Moses finds it impossible to turn down an assignment from the Presidential primary campaign of a Democrat whose policies closely resemble those of George McGovern. Senator Miles Hawthorne is on the cusp of gaining the Democratic nomination for President when flyers start appearing in Los Angeles associating him with a notorious radical. The flyer claims that Howard Eppis, chairman of the Free Amerika Party and author of Rip It Off, has not just endorsed Hawthorne but that his election will result in converting the country into a Communist state. (Eppis, of course, is a stand-in for the Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman, author of Steal This Book! It turns out, as we learn in an author’s note at the end, that Simon knew Hoffman.) Moses’ assignment is to track down Eppis and stop him from sabotaging the Hawthorne campaign.
The complicated story that follows involves Moses’ old girlfriend from Berkeley, a multimillionaire music producer, and the cast of a radical Chicano acting troupe. (The latter could only be, faintly disguised, the then-famous Teatro Campesino that figured prominently in organizing farmworkers in California.) For anyone who lived through that time as an adult, there are rewards to be found in The Big Fix. But the book conjured up more bad memories than good ones for me.
April 24, 2013
One of my favorites. Moses Wine never quite left the 60's behind, and now they're catching up with him. A good mystery about a 60's radical who disappeared into the underground (ala Abbie Hoffman) but now may be trying to influence an election, against a liberal democratic candidate. Moses Wine a liberal, ex hippie, still smoking marijuana, is making a living as a private eye. He's hired to figure out whats going on. He does, and meets some dangerous people along the way. A very good award winning book, made into a very good movie starring Richard Dreyfuss. The movie is substantially different from the novel, even though Simon himself wrote the screenplay.
July 4, 2013
I always appreciate a good opening. This one goes:
The last time I was with Lila Shea we were making love in the back of a 1952 Chrysler hearse parked across the street from the Oakland Induction Center.
January 2, 2011
Liked the Richard Dreyfuss movie version a bit better.
December 7, 2011
Barely remember it but I did read it and recall being entertained. Made into a decent movie with Richard Dreyfuss. Date read is a guess.
January 26, 2012
The first Moses Wine mystery, made into a movie. Tepid, really.
Want to read
January 27, 2019Synopsis: Lila had once been the love of PI Moses Wine's life. Several years later, she hired him but then she died. He must find out why.
May 16, 2015
A pretty good little mystery from which a pretty good little Richard Dreyfus movie was made.
March 29, 2017
I'm a huge fan of hard-boiled novelists like Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hamett, James M. Cain and others, especially those that write about L.A. So, I was excited to read "The Big Fix", but unfortunately it was interesting but a real let down. Simon names streets and name-drops lots of great L.A. locales and personalities of the time, but it was flat and the plot had huge holes that you can bulldoze through. I felt that it lacked the personality and point of view of the main detective. Moses Wine, being a Jewish detective, was a big draw for me but the writer didn't use this perspective enough to make a difference. I actually bought this book in the seventies when the movie came out (which I really liked) but didn't read it until now. It's funny that it now feels extremely dated especially with the drug use and political protests, unlike the novels of Chandler with his sardonic humor and view of L.A. is still readable. I guess Simon ain't Chandler.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews