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John Marshall Tanner #3
State's Evidence
Hired by the mob to locate the only reliable witness to a recent mob-orchestrated hit-and-run killing, San Francisco private eye John Marshall Tanner must find out if the witness, Teresa Blair, is hiding or if someone is keeping her quiet
320 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
8 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Greenleaf
32 books27 followersStephen Greenleaf got a B.A. from Carlton College in 1964 and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkely in 1967. Stephen Greenleaf served in the United States Army from 1967 through 1969, and was also admitted to the California Bar during that period, with subsequent numerous legal positions.
Stephen Greenleaf studied creative writing at the University of Iowa in 1978 and 1979, (the Iowa Writers Workshop) with the subsequent publication of his first Tanner novel in 1979. Mr. Greenleaf has written fourteen John Marshall Tanner books to date, with his latest being Ellipse. All the novels are situated in San Fransico, and Stephen Greenleaf also lives in northern California with his wife Ann.
Series:
* John Marshall Tanner Mystery
Stephen Greenleaf studied creative writing at the University of Iowa in 1978 and 1979, (the Iowa Writers Workshop) with the subsequent publication of his first Tanner novel in 1979. Mr. Greenleaf has written fourteen John Marshall Tanner books to date, with his latest being Ellipse. All the novels are situated in San Fransico, and Stephen Greenleaf also lives in northern California with his wife Ann.
Series:
* John Marshall Tanner Mystery
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 11, 2018
San Francisco Private Investigator John Marshall Tanner is asked by El Gordo's district attorney to help him clean up his corrupt town.
One of the richest men in town killed a man in a hit and run accident and the man is trying to buy his way out of trouble ... after all, the victim was nobody important.
The police department is the most corrupt in the state of California. Tanner has a history with this small town and if he returns, he may be placing his own life on the line.
This is the third in this series, but this one reads well as a stand alone. As always, I recommend starting from the beginning to take advantage of all the gems and nuggets that make a really good story.
Tanner makes a great series character. In the first two books, readers learn more personal history about him ... like how did he go from lawyer to private investigator? He's a man of good moral character, integrity, honesty, and doing what's right.
This is a well-written page turner full of action and suspense.
Many thanks to the author / Open Road Integrated Media / Netgalley for the digital copy of this crime fiction. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
One of the richest men in town killed a man in a hit and run accident and the man is trying to buy his way out of trouble ... after all, the victim was nobody important.
The police department is the most corrupt in the state of California. Tanner has a history with this small town and if he returns, he may be placing his own life on the line.
This is the third in this series, but this one reads well as a stand alone. As always, I recommend starting from the beginning to take advantage of all the gems and nuggets that make a really good story.
Tanner makes a great series character. In the first two books, readers learn more personal history about him ... like how did he go from lawyer to private investigator? He's a man of good moral character, integrity, honesty, and doing what's right.
This is a well-written page turner full of action and suspense.
Many thanks to the author / Open Road Integrated Media / Netgalley for the digital copy of this crime fiction. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
February 3, 2013
Many people have compare Greenleaf to Ross MacDonald and I can see why. There is the same undercurrent of corruption and complicated familial relationships suffering from events that occurred many years before. Greenleaf has been much under-appreciated and that's a shame. I recently ordered a bunch of his Tanner novels and will be vegging out on them over the next few days.
In this one Tanner is asked by the Deputy DA Tolson of El Gordo to help find a missing witness. Mrs. Blair reportedly had seen a local thug hit-and-run a pedestrian. Tolson wants to put this guy away. Teresa Blair has disappeared, even while being under police protection. For his own reasons her husband, James, also wants her found. The local Chief of Detectives, Grinder, has his own reasons for wanting Tanner to report to him instead of Tolson and a neighbor , Kathie, fears for Teresa's life thinking James wanted to do her harm. Then there is Wayne, the neighbor's husband, who, having found religion had been booted out of the house, but is stalking his son. And we won't even mention the feds who have their own interest in not wanting Tanner's involvement.
Everything comes together in an ending I just didn't see coming.
It's pretty hard not to like a book that indulges in the use of words like crepuscular and preterlogical and has paragraphs like this one: "I started to say something, then stopped. Fluto had built a life out of that warped rationalization of benevolence and it would take a better sophist than I to knock it out of him. That’s why people like Fluto are both dangerous and ineradicable. They become criminals not out of need or desperation but out of conviction, out of a premeditated, preterlogical, almost genetic determination that crime is the only honorable mode of existence, the only way to retaliate against a government and a society they assume to be alien and oppressive. The mob rises out of that psychology, but Christianity and Nazism have their roots in alienation, too. Doctrine and ritual are the sanctuaries of the outcast, and I had encountered a lot of proof of that in this case."
In this one Tanner is asked by the Deputy DA Tolson of El Gordo to help find a missing witness. Mrs. Blair reportedly had seen a local thug hit-and-run a pedestrian. Tolson wants to put this guy away. Teresa Blair has disappeared, even while being under police protection. For his own reasons her husband, James, also wants her found. The local Chief of Detectives, Grinder, has his own reasons for wanting Tanner to report to him instead of Tolson and a neighbor , Kathie, fears for Teresa's life thinking James wanted to do her harm. Then there is Wayne, the neighbor's husband, who, having found religion had been booted out of the house, but is stalking his son. And we won't even mention the feds who have their own interest in not wanting Tanner's involvement.
Everything comes together in an ending I just didn't see coming.
It's pretty hard not to like a book that indulges in the use of words like crepuscular and preterlogical and has paragraphs like this one: "I started to say something, then stopped. Fluto had built a life out of that warped rationalization of benevolence and it would take a better sophist than I to knock it out of him. That’s why people like Fluto are both dangerous and ineradicable. They become criminals not out of need or desperation but out of conviction, out of a premeditated, preterlogical, almost genetic determination that crime is the only honorable mode of existence, the only way to retaliate against a government and a society they assume to be alien and oppressive. The mob rises out of that psychology, but Christianity and Nazism have their roots in alienation, too. Doctrine and ritual are the sanctuaries of the outcast, and I had encountered a lot of proof of that in this case."
January 3, 2011
Stephen Greenleaf is one of my favourite authors, he is the closest thing to Ross MacDonald out there, he is a writer with the ability to write passages of detective fiction that make you stand back and marvel at the skills of the novelist but State's Evidence was a dip in the quality of the series in my opinion. His first two books - Grave Error and Death Bed - were sensational, near perfect detective fiction but State's Evidence while very good, sees a dip in the quality of the work.
There is some unnecessary swearing throughout, the plotting is a bit difficult to understand at times (maybe too convoluted? Too many twists?) and (since this is my second time reading the book, I have read the whole series, am now re-reading it all again), I feel that this was the point that Greenleaf took a downward path in the quality of his work. From memory, the next Tanner book - Fatal Obsession - was ordinary as well, but Greenleaf does redeem himself in the later books.
This is the traditional gumshoe detective novel, a writer who will take you to the seamy side of the family drama and lay bare the hypocrises. There are the secrets of the past laid bare in the family and you can be guaranteed that there will be murder involved.
The detective is John Marshall Tanner, a man who we know little about, but is prepared to take a case of a missing woman in the hope that he finds the woman and can solve the crime.
How good are the Tanner books? Ok, they are not to the level of Ross MacDonald's Archer series but then again, no detective books are. Tanner is a character with a good heart, he solves mysteries with skilful sleuthing and maintains an awareness of his place in the world.
As always, Greenleaf is recommmended, just be aware that if this is your first try at him, bear in mind that it is one of his lesser efforts.
There is some unnecessary swearing throughout, the plotting is a bit difficult to understand at times (maybe too convoluted? Too many twists?) and (since this is my second time reading the book, I have read the whole series, am now re-reading it all again), I feel that this was the point that Greenleaf took a downward path in the quality of his work. From memory, the next Tanner book - Fatal Obsession - was ordinary as well, but Greenleaf does redeem himself in the later books.
This is the traditional gumshoe detective novel, a writer who will take you to the seamy side of the family drama and lay bare the hypocrises. There are the secrets of the past laid bare in the family and you can be guaranteed that there will be murder involved.
The detective is John Marshall Tanner, a man who we know little about, but is prepared to take a case of a missing woman in the hope that he finds the woman and can solve the crime.
How good are the Tanner books? Ok, they are not to the level of Ross MacDonald's Archer series but then again, no detective books are. Tanner is a character with a good heart, he solves mysteries with skilful sleuthing and maintains an awareness of his place in the world.
As always, Greenleaf is recommmended, just be aware that if this is your first try at him, bear in mind that it is one of his lesser efforts.
March 25, 2017
Stephen Greenleaf's States Evidence (Mysterious Press/Open Road 2017), third in the John Marshall Tanner series, puts John Tanner in El Gordo California where he starts the search for a missing woman. This story is set in the late 1900's so the detecting is done what we would call 'old school'--some electronics, but not much. He even has to find public phones to make calls! This, surprisingly, I found appealing; so much of Tanner's success depended upon his ability to connect the dots rather than simply following electronic breadcrumbs.
The story is told through Tanner's point of view so I was pleased to find him solid, dependable in his observations. Everything he does, we see through his detail-oriented eyes:
"...tall, white-haired though not old, as thin as twine. He wore a striped shirt, his slacks were white, his loafers were burgundy, and he wasn’t wearing socks. A gold chain was snug at his throat..."
The story itself is engaging if a bit dark:
"The woman was middle-aged and thoroughly wearied. Grayed hair leaked down her temples like the detached webs of spiders. Her eyes seemed wary of closing, for fear of what might happen in the darkness."
"The front yard was bordered by an untamed oleander and was bare in spots and overgrown in others and littered everywhere with children’s toys, most of them broken."
There were few descriptions of people or places that were uplifting, positive, able to make me smile.
One other point: Greenleaf is one of those writers who often shares dialogue in the narrative:
"...thanked her and gave her the number of my motel and asked her to check out the location and call me back. She said she would. I said I’d be eternally grateful. She said she doubted it, but she’d give me the chance."
Not good or bad. Just a trait.
Overall, an enjoyable read. I'll be purchasing the rest of the series.
The story is told through Tanner's point of view so I was pleased to find him solid, dependable in his observations. Everything he does, we see through his detail-oriented eyes:
"...tall, white-haired though not old, as thin as twine. He wore a striped shirt, his slacks were white, his loafers were burgundy, and he wasn’t wearing socks. A gold chain was snug at his throat..."
The story itself is engaging if a bit dark:
"The woman was middle-aged and thoroughly wearied. Grayed hair leaked down her temples like the detached webs of spiders. Her eyes seemed wary of closing, for fear of what might happen in the darkness."
"The front yard was bordered by an untamed oleander and was bare in spots and overgrown in others and littered everywhere with children’s toys, most of them broken."
There were few descriptions of people or places that were uplifting, positive, able to make me smile.
One other point: Greenleaf is one of those writers who often shares dialogue in the narrative:
"...thanked her and gave her the number of my motel and asked her to check out the location and call me back. She said she would. I said I’d be eternally grateful. She said she doubted it, but she’d give me the chance."
Not good or bad. Just a trait.
Overall, an enjoyable read. I'll be purchasing the rest of the series.
February 5, 2021
Covid 19 notwithstanding I am fairly happy with my lot, most of the time living in lockdown doesn't even feature in my thoughts.
And then I read 'State's Evidence' and got seriously depressed for a time - John Marshall Tanner literally bounces around his world while it has been six weeks since I have been more than a stone's throw from my home. He drives, he walks, visits pubs, restaurants, public offices, meets beautiful women, shops when he wants - there's a lot to dislike :)
I suppose it had to happen sometime, but why it was sparked by a book first published in 1991, written about places I have never been and probably never will, is beyond me. It's not as if Stephen Greenleaf did it deliberately!
Maybe, just maybe, the next book I choose to read will be a locked room mystery with minimal movement involved.
On the face of it P.I. Marsh Tanner has finally gotten himself an easy case, the D.A. in El Gordo is trying to track down a witness. Of course it ends up being far more convoluted - "All I agreed to do was find a witness to a hit-and-run. Which I did. And then the witness didn't turn out to be a witness, and the hit-and-run wasn't a hit-and-run, and things got complicated."
Everybody lies, about the hit-and-run, their relationships, the past and the present. Some are afraid, some are involved, and some work for various government agencies and speak jargon. Marsh Tanner just keeps plodding away, tugging at one thread after another until something resembling a narrative begins to appear.
And, once the truth begins to emerge, it all goes *poof*. Marsh Tanner, while not back to square one, is now on the hunt for a completely different witness, one who he already knows didn't see the event.
There's no sudden resolution at the end, just a finish.
Tanner remains something of a mystery, he talks a lot but reveals very little - he's capable of relationships but doesn't seem to invest much in them.
And then I read 'State's Evidence' and got seriously depressed for a time - John Marshall Tanner literally bounces around his world while it has been six weeks since I have been more than a stone's throw from my home. He drives, he walks, visits pubs, restaurants, public offices, meets beautiful women, shops when he wants - there's a lot to dislike :)
I suppose it had to happen sometime, but why it was sparked by a book first published in 1991, written about places I have never been and probably never will, is beyond me. It's not as if Stephen Greenleaf did it deliberately!
Maybe, just maybe, the next book I choose to read will be a locked room mystery with minimal movement involved.
On the face of it P.I. Marsh Tanner has finally gotten himself an easy case, the D.A. in El Gordo is trying to track down a witness. Of course it ends up being far more convoluted - "All I agreed to do was find a witness to a hit-and-run. Which I did. And then the witness didn't turn out to be a witness, and the hit-and-run wasn't a hit-and-run, and things got complicated."
Everybody lies, about the hit-and-run, their relationships, the past and the present. Some are afraid, some are involved, and some work for various government agencies and speak jargon. Marsh Tanner just keeps plodding away, tugging at one thread after another until something resembling a narrative begins to appear.
And, once the truth begins to emerge, it all goes *poof*. Marsh Tanner, while not back to square one, is now on the hunt for a completely different witness, one who he already knows didn't see the event.
There's no sudden resolution at the end, just a finish.
Tanner remains something of a mystery, he talks a lot but reveals very little - he's capable of relationships but doesn't seem to invest much in them.
August 22, 2020
Secrets secrets secrets, hidden identities and concealed zen spaces of the mind. This one will get you going, puzzling out the rights and wrongs and grieving a wrong death. Thank you Stephen Greenleaf!
September 7, 2017
State's Evidence by Stephen Greenleaf is an extremely well-written detective novel with plenty of surprise twists. Quality-wise it's in the same class as the best novels of Ross MacDonald.
October 25, 2018
RATING: 3.5
April 14, 2019
I'm glad I found this hard-boiled PI series, that started in the late '70's, and the great sense of place in the Bay Area. Tanner is a nice heir to, Spade or Marlowe. This series is a hidden gem.
June 25, 2014
Good book! Twists right up the last page.
Want to read
October 28, 2018Synopsis: San Francisco PI Tanner has been hired by the mob to locate the only reliable witness to a recent mob-orchestrated hit-and-run killing!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews