Dragonfire

Nameless Detective #9

by Bill Pronzini

It's a lazy mid-August Sunday afternoon. The "Nameless Detective" and his old friend Lieutenant Eberhardt are relaxing on the patio, drinking beer and shooting the breeze, when the doorbell rings. As Eberhardt answers the door, Nameless hears two sharp echoing reports-gunshots; they could only be gunshots. Rushing into the house, Nameless glimpses the bloody body of his friend sprawled on the floor-just before he feels a bullet strike his own chest. While Eberhardt lies in a coma, Nameless is released from the hospital and hits the San Francisco streets, determined to track down the gunman. Facing the toughest case of his career, Nameless doggedly pursues the secret behind his friend's shooting-only to find himself plunged into an action-packed intrigue involving murder, bribery, violence, and the forces of organized crime in San Francisco's Chinatown. The inimitable Nameless Detective, an overweight private eye of Italian descent with a penchant for pulp magazines, is in top form in this gripping, fast-paced tale. "Pronzini makes people and events so real that you're living those explosive days of terror." -Robert Ludlum "Pronzini is a pro." -The New York Times

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Detective, Fiction

202 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

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 4 out of 5]

Dragonfire is another entertaining entry in Bill Pronzini’s Nameless Detective series. In the last entry, our private eye suffered a series of misfortunes which caused him to be deprived of Kerry his love, his license, and the lustre of his good reputation. In this installment, while having a cookout dinner wit his friend Lieutenant Eberhardt of the San Francisco police, he becomes a case of collateral damage. An assassination attempt upon Eberhardt puts the lieutenant into a coma, and Nameless is left with many wounds, not far from death himself, hampered by a partially paralyzed hand.

Consumed with bitterness and anger, Nameless sets out to find the person responsible. Soon his search leads him into the narrow sides streets of Chinatown and forces him to face some unpleasant facts about his friend of many years.

The Chinatown sequences are fine, handled with a maximum of exotic atmosphere yet a minimum number of cliches. The ending is downbeat, and at first I didn’t like it, but then I realized that it was an appropriate conclusion to this particular adventure, for it helps rid our hero of his anger, and restores him—scarred but healed—to his world.

[Carla Remy · Rating 3 out of 5]

From 1982
Nameless and his friend Lieutenant Eberhart are shot, Eb is in a coma and Nameless has to solve the mystery.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the events of Scattershot, Nameless and his best bud Lieutenant Eberhardt are soaking their misery in beer. Eberhardt is stewing in bitterness following having his wife walk out on him and Nameless has lost both P.I license and girlfriend Kerry Wade. Misery loves company they say and both men feel they're perched on the lowest step that life can offer. But when the doorbell heralds a hail of bullets they find out the hard way that there's always a lower step.
Nameless wakes up in hospital with a serious mad on, vowing to track down the oriental shooter and take him down... take him right down to Chinatown.
It's great to be back in the company of our Nameless investigator,, though he's not really completely the man we've followed for eight books or so. He wants payback. But he's no Charles Bronson. Pronzini doesn't really commit to working the theme of the destructive nature of blindly seeking vengeance. The more interesting aspects of the story are his convalescent relationship with Kerry and how he reacts to the discovery that Eberhardt has secrets.

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

Chinatown adventures! Gunshot wounds! Operating without a license! And other spine-tingling heroics!

[Vintagebooklvr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes it is just fun to read a hard-boiled detective story. There is something basic and straight-forward about them. Save the dame. Find the murderer. Here, get revenge. Nameless is on a crusade to discover who shot his friend and him. The trail leads him to Chinatown and the beginnings of the booming of Silicon Valley. The Nameless detective is prone to less use of his fists and a carrying the gun, but the feel is very much of a pulp detective story as he likes to collect. Relatively fast-paced, direct and only around 200 pages it goes quickly and leaves you satisfied.

[John Yelverton · Rating 4 out of 5]

You really have to have read the previous books in order to understand a lot of what's going on at first. Eventually, you get more into the mystery itself, but the gravitas of what occurs to the characters is lost if you haven't read any of the previous books.

[D. Norman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read.

[John Raspanti · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best of the series so far. Compelling and thoughtful. Pronzini says more with less....

[John Grazide · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nameless and Eb are having a miserable Sunday afternoon together (misery loves company) when a surprise guest really makes their Sunday miserable. After this happens Nameless, still with his license suspended, takes matters into his own hands to find who's responsible. Another very well written story that really takes us into Nameless' way of thinking when he's forced to toe the line.

[Karl · Rating 4 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

[Shan · Rating 3 out of 5]

La storia è ambientata a San Francisco e l’autore è un amante del genere pulp e si vede.
La storia è abbastanza complicata e noiosa, probabilmente non è uno dei suoi migliori racconti ma il detective Senzanome arriverà alla conclusione in maniera lineare, nel senso che come in una caccia al tesoro ogni personaggio lo rimanderà verso un altro e poi un altro fino a giungere al colpevole.
Il detective ed il suo amico tenente Eberhardt in un giorno d'estate stanno bevendo birra quando vengono colpiti da proiettili dall’uomo che ha suonato alla porta.
Eberhardt dopo la sparatoria cade in coma ed il nostro detective ha solo una ferita sulla spalla. Scoprirà che l’obiettivo era Eberhardt poichè era stato ricattato da un certo Emerson titolare assieme ad altri due soci di una compagnia elettronica. Emerson si porterà dietro una scia di delitti e crimini finché non verrà fermato.

[Patti · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this entry in the Nameless Detective series, our hero and his best friend, Lieutenant Eberhardt are shot and seriously injured by a shooter who comes to Eberhardt's home. Eberhardt ends up in a coma, and our hero rises from his hospital bed to go investigate why they were shot. Currently in the series, "Nameless" is without his private investigator's license, and his relationship with Kerry is on a perilous course. The investigation leads him to a computer company that's about to go public, San Francisco's Chinatown, and the possibility that his extremely honest friend has taken a bribe late in his career.

Dragonfire is an okay entry in this series, a good transition from previous cases to future ones (as the series is a long one, I presume that "Nameless" gets his license back), and continues to lay groundwork for his relationship with Kerry.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dragonfire is the ninth Nameless Detective book, and I'm quite happy to see that a series that I was about to give up on (though it feels weird to talk about giving up on a series based on books written 25 years ago, when I was in Jr. High) has turned a corner. Or, at least, it had a good book.

The strength of Nameless Detective is the characters, and this has that in spades, with ND going through a major philosophical breakdown and also having great interactions with his (current) girlfriend and his best friend.

The weakness of Nameless Detective over the last couple of books has been Pronzini's sudden obsessions with puzzles and locked-door mysteries. There aren't any here. Just a good old-fashioned shooting and the places that it leads (through real detective work, not just thinking).

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#9 in the Nameless Detctive series. The downward spiral began in Scattershot (1982) continues. His girlfriend has left him and th epolice chief has followed through on his threats and has had his license suspended. Nameless, though, muddles through in a very entertaining and satisfactory entry in the series.

Nameless Detective has lost his license and his lady; his friend on the police force, Eberhardt, has been dumped -- his wife left him for another man. How could things get worse? Well, a gunman attacks them and they both get shot. Eb lands in a coma, Nameless takes a bullet in his left arm. As his friend lies unconscious in the hospital, Nameless investigates the crime, which leads him to the narrow alleyways of San Francisco's Chinatown.

[Michael Tildsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

There's something kind of mesmerizing about Pronzini's Nameless Detective series. To me, it has become a return to a familiar place, comfortable in its way, but different and exciting enough in each volume to carry me to the end.

I enjoyed all the twists and turns in this novel, particularly the true-to-life circumstances Nameless and Eberhardt both found themselves in to begin it. I think the story about three quarters of the way through starts coming together a bit too nicely, and it's not as believable. I think without a rushed ending, this would have been much better.

[Maddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

PROTAGONIST: Nameless Detective
SERIES: #9 of 30
RATING: 3.75
WHY: For me, Pronzini is THE MAN. This one was slightly less satisfying than usual for me. Nameless is consumed by anger which made him a less attractive character than normal. He's working through having his PI license temporarily lifted, his love interest distancing herself and his police friend possibly doing something a bit corrupt.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great Nameless story. His best friend, Lieutenant Eberhardt gets shot when he answers his front door, and as Nameless rushes in from the kitchen to see what's going on, he gets a bullet in his shoulder for his trouble. While Eberhardt lies in a coma, Nameless is trying to track down the killer and get to the bottom of this mystery. In the meantime, he and Kerry are on the outs and it seems like the world is against him ... how will it all end?

[Gigi Bats · Rating 1 out of 5]

Aburrido y lento de leer. Con un final que si bien no es abierto te hace preguntar "¿y bien?" como si al autor le hubiera parecido mucha molestia terminar de decidir. Demasiado tedioso y de final ambiguo. Realmente no entiendo que ven de grandioso en la historia o la trama o el protagonista si quiera, me alegra haberlo terminado sólo por el hecho de quitarmelo de encima, perdí mi tiempo con esta lectura.

[Cat. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nameless and his former police partner are having a cookout when someone knocks on Eberhart's front door and then shoots him and Nameless as well, as collateral damage.

Of course, this must be resolved, and eventually it is. Nameless finds out what Eb was working on in Chinatown and hunts down both the shooter and the reasons behind the shooting, all before Eb wakes up from his coma.

[Michael P. · Rating 1 out of 5]

A dull, lifeless pseudo-hard-boiled mystery with a colorless protagonist that is plotted by the numbers. You have better things to do with your time. Too bad the author did not have better things to do with his.

[Nat Kidder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid hard-boiled private eye thriller, with Nameless zeroing in on who slightly wounded him and seriously wounded his friend in a gangland ambush.

Pronzini takes a (pardon the expression) jaded view of Chinese-Americans. But if you can overlook that, it's a page-turner all the way.

[Carolyn Di Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this series! It completely satisfies my need for noir! I think I'm falling for "Nameless" just a little bit, too....

[Eliana]

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

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one went to San Francisco's Chinatown, interesting characters and plot development.

[Harry Addington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent mystery and character study.

[Rich Van Ollefen · Rating 4 out of 5]

a fast easy read, very enjoyable. Read the ZigZag short stories first, then decided to back and find some others.

[Jim Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another pretty good Nameless Detective entry. I liked the story and plot and would have given it 4 stars except there was too much whining and complaining in the first few chapters.

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 4 out of 5]

lots of action not much puzzle, but satisfying

[Sally Plunkett · Rating 4 out of 5]

#9 in the Nameless Detective Series