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Milo Milodragovitch #2
Dancing Bear
Detective Milo Dragovitch spends too much time boozing until he gets caught up in a case involving two-bit criminals and an old lady on the run.
His friends call him Milo. No one has ever called him Bud except his father, long dead, and now Sarah Weddington, stirring painful memoires and offering him his first case since he abandoned his private practice and took a job marking time on the night shift for Haliburton Security. The case seems almost too easy, hardly worth the large fee, just to satisfy this old woman's curiosity. But things are soon exploding all over the place and Milo is turning up grenades, machine guns, a kilo of marijuana and a bag of coke . . . and suddenly Milo is on the run.
His friends call him Milo. No one has ever called him Bud except his father, long dead, and now Sarah Weddington, stirring painful memoires and offering him his first case since he abandoned his private practice and took a job marking time on the night shift for Haliburton Security. The case seems almost too easy, hardly worth the large fee, just to satisfy this old woman's curiosity. But things are soon exploding all over the place and Milo is turning up grenades, machine guns, a kilo of marijuana and a bag of coke . . . and suddenly Milo is on the run.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
34 people are currently reading
778 people want to read
About the author
James Crumley
61 books313 followersJames Arthur Crumley was the author of violent hardboiled crime novels and several volumes of short stories and essays, as well as published and unpublished screenplays. He has been described as "one of modern crime writing's best practitioners", who was "a patron saint of the post-Vietnam private eye novel"and a cross between Raymond Chandler and Hunter S. Thompson.His book The Last Good Kiss has been described as "the most influential crime novel of the last 50 years."
Crumley, who was born in Three Rivers, Texas, grew up in south Texas, where his father was an oil-field supervisor and his mother was a waitress.
Crumley was a grade-A student and a football player, an offensive lineman, in high school. He attended the Georgia Institute of Technology on a Navy ROTC scholarship, but left to serve in the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1961 in the Philippines. He then attended the Texas College of Arts and Industries on a football scholarship, where he received his B.A. degree with a major in history in 1964. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at the University of Iowa in 1966. His master's thesis was later published as the Vietnam War novel One to Count Cadence in 1969.
Crumley had not read any detective fiction until prompted to by Montana poet Richard Hugo, who recommended the work of Raymond Chandler for the quality of his sentences. Crumley finally picked up a copy of one of Chandler's books in Guadalajara, Mexico. Impressed by Chandler's writing, and that of Ross Macdonald, Crumley began writing his first detective novel, The Wrong Case, which was published in 1975.
Crumley served on the English faculty of the University of Montana at Missoula, and as a visiting professor at a number of other colleges, including the University of Arkansas, Colorado State University, the University of Texas at El Paso, Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
From the mid-80s on he lived in Missoula, Montana, where he found inspiration for his novels at Charlie B's bar. A regular there, he had many longstanding friends who have been portrayed as characters in his books.
Crumley died at St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Montana on September 17, 2008 of complications from kidney and pulmonary diseases after many years of health problems. He was survived by his wife of 16 years, Martha Elizabeth, a poet and artist who was his fifth wife. He had five children – three from his second marriage and two from his fourth – eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Crumley, who was born in Three Rivers, Texas, grew up in south Texas, where his father was an oil-field supervisor and his mother was a waitress.
Crumley was a grade-A student and a football player, an offensive lineman, in high school. He attended the Georgia Institute of Technology on a Navy ROTC scholarship, but left to serve in the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1961 in the Philippines. He then attended the Texas College of Arts and Industries on a football scholarship, where he received his B.A. degree with a major in history in 1964. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at the University of Iowa in 1966. His master's thesis was later published as the Vietnam War novel One to Count Cadence in 1969.
Crumley had not read any detective fiction until prompted to by Montana poet Richard Hugo, who recommended the work of Raymond Chandler for the quality of his sentences. Crumley finally picked up a copy of one of Chandler's books in Guadalajara, Mexico. Impressed by Chandler's writing, and that of Ross Macdonald, Crumley began writing his first detective novel, The Wrong Case, which was published in 1975.
Crumley served on the English faculty of the University of Montana at Missoula, and as a visiting professor at a number of other colleges, including the University of Arkansas, Colorado State University, the University of Texas at El Paso, Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
From the mid-80s on he lived in Missoula, Montana, where he found inspiration for his novels at Charlie B's bar. A regular there, he had many longstanding friends who have been portrayed as characters in his books.
Crumley died at St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Montana on September 17, 2008 of complications from kidney and pulmonary diseases after many years of health problems. He was survived by his wife of 16 years, Martha Elizabeth, a poet and artist who was his fifth wife. He had five children – three from his second marriage and two from his fourth – eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
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November 27, 2025
L’ORSO DANZANTE
Milton Chester Milodragovitch, Milo per gli amici (e i nemici), erediterà la cospicua eredità paterna arrivato a 52 anni. Fino ad allora gli tocca guadagnarsi la pagnotta. Dopo la guerra in Corea e un’esperienza in polizia, decide di mettersi in proprio e apre un ufficio da investigatore privato.
Ma come s’è visto nella prima storia della breve serie (hard boiled) Il caso sbagliato, finisce con il perdere lo studio, lo stabile che lo ospita – parte della futura eredità – e chiudere l’attività.
Cinque anni dopo ha 47 anni, beve ancora tanto, fino all’autodistruzione, fuma, tira piste bianche (lui dice che si tratta di dedizione e non dipendenza, ma non è facile credergli), e si mantiene lavorando (per modo di dire) da guardia giurata notturna.
Finché un brusco risveglio lo proietta senza preavviso in un tuffo nel passato: il caso da risolvere ha molto a che fare con i suoi ricordi d’infanzia, e con gente che non vede da decenni.
Perché proprio a 52 anni e non prima o dopo?
Perché a 52 anni suo padre è morto. Suicida. Oppure si è trattato d’un dubbio maldestro incidente. Ma la prima ipotesi è quella che Milo ha abbracciato.
È chiaro che Milo combatte i suoi fantasmi. Ed è chiaro che il suo nemico numero uno è proprio la sua stessa esistenza: nel senso di combattere la noia e la monotonia, qualsiasi cosa pur di dare una ravvivata ai suoi giorni. Anche accettare casi disperati, o sbagliati come nella prima storia, o su cattive strade come in questa.
E forse per questo, per movimentarsi la vita, s’è sposato cinque volte. E divorziato altrettante. Ma i divorzi si portano dietro ricchi conti in alimonie.
E allora andiamo a vedere il fondo del bicchiere, e per vederlo meglio, con sguardo più lucido, facciamoci una bella riga di coca. Così domani potremo svegliarci chissà a che ora ma almeno con la testa confusa e annebbiata.
La trama è come d’abitudine alquanto elaborata e contorta, ma questa volta sono riuscito a seguirla meglio. Porta i personaggi e il lettore avanti e indietro tra il Montana e Seattle con varie diramazioni meno cruciali.
Crumley e il suo eroe io-narrante sono come sempre sanguigni e sarcastici, si sorride spesso, il divertimento è assicurato.
Come nella migliore tradizione di questo genere letterario, il primo (o, forse più spesso) la prima a mentire e cercare di fregare il private eye è proprio il/la cliente.
Alcune situazioni oscillano tra l’inverosimile e l’eccentrico: io ho sempre optato per la seconda definizione e me le sono godute tutte, fedele al patto e continuando a sospendere la mia incredulità.
Il mondo mi restava troppo assurdo, per affrontarlo da sobrio. Forse non tutto quanto il mondo, ma almeno quello in cui vivevo: bar e vicoli, ombre in cui mi nascondevo a guardare. Quel mondo, fuori di testa com’era, non riuscivo ad affrontarlo da sobrio. Ma forse il mondo intero era un’unica, gigantesca follia. Guerre per motivi religiosi, politici, economici… Chissà, magari rifletteva solo la nostra immagine. Oppure eravamo noi a riflettere la sua.
Dancing Bear è il titolo originale e fa riferimento a una leggenda indiana (nel senso di nativo americano). Indiani Benniwah.
Fa anche riferimento a una zona boscosa che qualcuno cerca di preservare come parco nazionale e qualcun altro invece preferisce rimanga privata e depredabile.
Il Montana, dove sono ambientate le storie di Milo (e anche quelle del suo ex socio titolare d’un’altra breve serie di romanzi, sempre hard boiled, C.W. Sughrue) di nativi americani ne ha visti. Ora meno, perché come è noto i bianchi li hanno decimati (=sterminati). Ma (almeno) le leggende sopravvivono.
Milton Chester Milodragovitch, Milo per gli amici (e i nemici), erediterà la cospicua eredità paterna arrivato a 52 anni. Fino ad allora gli tocca guadagnarsi la pagnotta. Dopo la guerra in Corea e un’esperienza in polizia, decide di mettersi in proprio e apre un ufficio da investigatore privato.
Ma come s’è visto nella prima storia della breve serie (hard boiled) Il caso sbagliato, finisce con il perdere lo studio, lo stabile che lo ospita – parte della futura eredità – e chiudere l’attività.
Cinque anni dopo ha 47 anni, beve ancora tanto, fino all’autodistruzione, fuma, tira piste bianche (lui dice che si tratta di dedizione e non dipendenza, ma non è facile credergli), e si mantiene lavorando (per modo di dire) da guardia giurata notturna.
Finché un brusco risveglio lo proietta senza preavviso in un tuffo nel passato: il caso da risolvere ha molto a che fare con i suoi ricordi d’infanzia, e con gente che non vede da decenni.
Perché proprio a 52 anni e non prima o dopo?
Perché a 52 anni suo padre è morto. Suicida. Oppure si è trattato d’un dubbio maldestro incidente. Ma la prima ipotesi è quella che Milo ha abbracciato.
È chiaro che Milo combatte i suoi fantasmi. Ed è chiaro che il suo nemico numero uno è proprio la sua stessa esistenza: nel senso di combattere la noia e la monotonia, qualsiasi cosa pur di dare una ravvivata ai suoi giorni. Anche accettare casi disperati, o sbagliati come nella prima storia, o su cattive strade come in questa.
E forse per questo, per movimentarsi la vita, s’è sposato cinque volte. E divorziato altrettante. Ma i divorzi si portano dietro ricchi conti in alimonie.
E allora andiamo a vedere il fondo del bicchiere, e per vederlo meglio, con sguardo più lucido, facciamoci una bella riga di coca. Così domani potremo svegliarci chissà a che ora ma almeno con la testa confusa e annebbiata.
La trama è come d’abitudine alquanto elaborata e contorta, ma questa volta sono riuscito a seguirla meglio. Porta i personaggi e il lettore avanti e indietro tra il Montana e Seattle con varie diramazioni meno cruciali.
Crumley e il suo eroe io-narrante sono come sempre sanguigni e sarcastici, si sorride spesso, il divertimento è assicurato.
Come nella migliore tradizione di questo genere letterario, il primo (o, forse più spesso) la prima a mentire e cercare di fregare il private eye è proprio il/la cliente.
Alcune situazioni oscillano tra l’inverosimile e l’eccentrico: io ho sempre optato per la seconda definizione e me le sono godute tutte, fedele al patto e continuando a sospendere la mia incredulità.
Il mondo mi restava troppo assurdo, per affrontarlo da sobrio. Forse non tutto quanto il mondo, ma almeno quello in cui vivevo: bar e vicoli, ombre in cui mi nascondevo a guardare. Quel mondo, fuori di testa com’era, non riuscivo ad affrontarlo da sobrio. Ma forse il mondo intero era un’unica, gigantesca follia. Guerre per motivi religiosi, politici, economici… Chissà, magari rifletteva solo la nostra immagine. Oppure eravamo noi a riflettere la sua.
Dancing Bear è il titolo originale e fa riferimento a una leggenda indiana (nel senso di nativo americano). Indiani Benniwah.
Fa anche riferimento a una zona boscosa che qualcuno cerca di preservare come parco nazionale e qualcun altro invece preferisce rimanga privata e depredabile.
Il Montana, dove sono ambientate le storie di Milo (e anche quelle del suo ex socio titolare d’un’altra breve serie di romanzi, sempre hard boiled, C.W. Sughrue) di nativi americani ne ha visti. Ora meno, perché come è noto i bianchi li hanno decimati (=sterminati). Ma (almeno) le leggende sopravvivono.
January 25, 2022
Man, this was a good time. Milo's nerves are way more shot than I remember and he's luckier with the ladies, but his appetite for alcohol and cocaine remain bottomless, fueling his frequent bouts of depression and manic swings, and seems mostly resigned on the whole to the confused, messy crap show that is life. The plot is more exciting than The Wrong Case, with Milo stumbling into the midst of a genuine shitstorm of corporate greed, corruption and violence. Yet Crumley's writing is noticeably less affecting, the digs against society's ills less astute and penetrating. Others have likened Crumley to part Hunter S. Thompson, part Raymond Chandler. I see the latter to some extent here - Milo is a standup guy in a dark, crazy world like Marlowe - but have a hard time squaring him with Thompson's hallucinatory ramblings.
January 5, 2016
Private detective Milo Milodragovich could share the old Pinkerton’s motto of “We Never Sleep”, but in Milo’s case that’s probably because of all the cocaine he does.
Actually, at the beginning of this one, Milo is keeping a reasonably low profile following the events of The Wrong Case. He’s working as a low level rent-a-cop for a security agency run by Colonel Haliburton* and is staying relatively clean and sober by restricting his chemical intake to peppermint schnapps. However, after a nasty incident on the security job and a meeting with the elderly mistress of his late father, Milo finds himself working two cases that soon have him back on the bottle and tooting coke like a character on Miami Vice.
What should be a couple of routine matters soon turn ugly and in true Crumley fashion, Milo’s method of working a case involves many miles of driving around with lots of guns and drugs and there’s more than a little drinking going on. It’s glorious!
This one is pretty typical of the Crumley crime novels with one of his two main characters getting in way over his head and trying to cope with it through drug abuse, excessive violence and black humor. It’s been said many times, but it bears repeating that these books are like a mix of Raymond Chandler and Hunter S. Thompson.
It’s frantically paced noir with a cynical world view that’s a helluva lot of fun to read.
* (The idea that Milo is working for a security company owned by a guy named Haliburton made me laugh repeatedly as I thought about this joke from 30 Rock.)
Actually, at the beginning of this one, Milo is keeping a reasonably low profile following the events of The Wrong Case. He’s working as a low level rent-a-cop for a security agency run by Colonel Haliburton* and is staying relatively clean and sober by restricting his chemical intake to peppermint schnapps. However, after a nasty incident on the security job and a meeting with the elderly mistress of his late father, Milo finds himself working two cases that soon have him back on the bottle and tooting coke like a character on Miami Vice.
What should be a couple of routine matters soon turn ugly and in true Crumley fashion, Milo’s method of working a case involves many miles of driving around with lots of guns and drugs and there’s more than a little drinking going on. It’s glorious!
This one is pretty typical of the Crumley crime novels with one of his two main characters getting in way over his head and trying to cope with it through drug abuse, excessive violence and black humor. It’s been said many times, but it bears repeating that these books are like a mix of Raymond Chandler and Hunter S. Thompson.
It’s frantically paced noir with a cynical world view that’s a helluva lot of fun to read.
* (The idea that Milo is working for a security company owned by a guy named Haliburton made me laugh repeatedly as I thought about this joke from 30 Rock.)
August 18, 2025
“Goddammit, Milo,” he groaned, “ your draw trouble like honey draws flies.”
“Or shit.”
Milton Chester Milodragovitch III, better and easier spelled as Milo, is no longer a private detective at the start of this novel. After being forced to kill two gangsters who were threatening him, Milo decides to play it safe and coast through life boozing and smoking pot and snorting the white powder until he reaches his 52nd birthday and comes into his long-awaited trust fund. His home town of Meriwether, Montana, founded by one of his piratical ancestors, should be hibernating in the winter season while Milo dozes off at his post as an employee of Haliburton Security, a private company yet to become the focus of scandals in Iraq.
Then things get terribly wrong at the small shop Milo is guarding, and our man is asked to take a little vacation. Why not combine business with pleasure?
With an opening gambit that proves the story about Crumley starting his writer career after reading some of the best Raymond Chandler stories, Milo is called to the luxurious mansion of an eccentric old lady, who not only has a plum offer for him, but also turns out to be the ‘other woman’ in his late father’s suicidal life.
The old lady is crippled and bored and, after reminiscing about the good old days, asks Milo to identify a couple of other illicit lovers who meet in a park across from her house. She’s been busy with her binoculars. Easy money, right?
Then the surveillance set up by Milo goes straight down a highway to hell, with a car chase across several states that ends up with an explosion, a dead body, several guns and a kilo of cocaine. Apparently, Milo has poked a bear in his search for honey (read the prologue to understand the reference) and now the angry beast is out to get him.
“Try to remember, Milo, that sometimes you eat the bear, but sometimes the bear eats you.”
The plot resembles Chandler in more ways than a simple opening gambit. It keeps changing for the gumshoe, the stakes raised higher, the witnesses dying around him, the friends becoming suspects. Milo is dancing to somebody else’s tune and is not a happy bear. There are several other bears in the story.
He needs help, so he brings out the big guns and he hires a sidekick who may be even more volatile than Milo himself – a Vietnam war vet with a death wish and a drinking problem.
“We’ve got enough arms to start a god-damned war, man, but if we’re getting into Texas Chain-Saw Massacre, I’m getting out.” Then he had to hold his jaws shut to keep the laughter inside.
Between heavy drinking, bad jokes, drug abuse and sleeping with every dame that crosses his way, it is improbable that Milo can untangle the mystery of the angry bear that is chasing him. It is also possible that the bad guys have underestimated the lengths Milo can go to when his own home and his own people are threatened.
>>><<<>>><<<
This is my second Milodragovitch novel and my fourth I think from Crumley. He is fast becoming one of my favorite modern noir authors. I guess I can say that I have joined the cult because, according to his bio, Crumley never achieved commercial success in his lifetime, but he got rave reviews and a cult following among other writers of crime novels.
He is raw and powerful and poetic in delivery, true to the genre origins and also incredibly bleak and violent without straying into Tarantino territory of making violence trendy and spectacular. “Enough people die in this world without my help, and I don’t think I can stand it anymore.” explains Milo about his decision to leave the PI business and his reluctance to terminate the guys who are stalking him. There’s always a bitter taste of defeat in his mouth every time the guns speak. A taste that can only be washed out in a bar.
Lord, did I want one. Whiskey for warmth in the gut, for fire to burn the ugly taste of violent death out of my throat, whiskey for laughter.
Milo’s world is not a pleasant one. Like his creator Crumley, Milo can often be found trying to drown his sorrows in a sleazy bar or two. As in the first book of the series, these scenes ring true to me, even as I know I cannot follow this gumshoe down his particular path to destruction.
The world was simply too crazy for me to handle sober. Maybe not the whole world, but at least the world where I lived – the bars and back streets, the shadows from which I watched, that world was too crazy for me to handle sober. Maybe to whole world was too crazy. Religious wars, political wars, economic wars ... Did that world out there reflect us? Or we, that world?
It’s called ‘noir’ for a reason, right? Crumley was also a teacher of literature and creative writing, and I think it shows in the way he can define a whole genre with a short phrase:
After death, the crossing over, we find neither heaven nor hell, not even happy hunting, but just more of the same sad, silly life we thought we left behind. Confusion and muddle, disorder and despair.
I have learned some things. Modern life is warfare without end: take no prisoners, leave no wounded, eat the dead – that’s environmentally sound.
I tried to steer away from spoilers after describing the opening moves of the case. For the sake of aiding my memory later down the line, the tags for the book should include bears and honey, Montana logging and winter scenes, investigative journalism, the Benniwah tribe and their legends, hot women of easy virtue, heavy drinking and drug use, corporate greed and environmental laws being broken... also the huge grizzly skin you can see on the cover.
“Think about it. This is big business,” she said, “and when you threaten their profits, they are ready to kill.”
I plan to continue with the Crumley books. Next one I think features his other detective, C. W. Sughrue.
“Or shit.”
Milton Chester Milodragovitch III, better and easier spelled as Milo, is no longer a private detective at the start of this novel. After being forced to kill two gangsters who were threatening him, Milo decides to play it safe and coast through life boozing and smoking pot and snorting the white powder until he reaches his 52nd birthday and comes into his long-awaited trust fund. His home town of Meriwether, Montana, founded by one of his piratical ancestors, should be hibernating in the winter season while Milo dozes off at his post as an employee of Haliburton Security, a private company yet to become the focus of scandals in Iraq.
Then things get terribly wrong at the small shop Milo is guarding, and our man is asked to take a little vacation. Why not combine business with pleasure?
With an opening gambit that proves the story about Crumley starting his writer career after reading some of the best Raymond Chandler stories, Milo is called to the luxurious mansion of an eccentric old lady, who not only has a plum offer for him, but also turns out to be the ‘other woman’ in his late father’s suicidal life.
The old lady is crippled and bored and, after reminiscing about the good old days, asks Milo to identify a couple of other illicit lovers who meet in a park across from her house. She’s been busy with her binoculars. Easy money, right?
Then the surveillance set up by Milo goes straight down a highway to hell, with a car chase across several states that ends up with an explosion, a dead body, several guns and a kilo of cocaine. Apparently, Milo has poked a bear in his search for honey (read the prologue to understand the reference) and now the angry beast is out to get him.
“Try to remember, Milo, that sometimes you eat the bear, but sometimes the bear eats you.”
The plot resembles Chandler in more ways than a simple opening gambit. It keeps changing for the gumshoe, the stakes raised higher, the witnesses dying around him, the friends becoming suspects. Milo is dancing to somebody else’s tune and is not a happy bear. There are several other bears in the story.
He needs help, so he brings out the big guns and he hires a sidekick who may be even more volatile than Milo himself – a Vietnam war vet with a death wish and a drinking problem.
“We’ve got enough arms to start a god-damned war, man, but if we’re getting into Texas Chain-Saw Massacre, I’m getting out.” Then he had to hold his jaws shut to keep the laughter inside.
Between heavy drinking, bad jokes, drug abuse and sleeping with every dame that crosses his way, it is improbable that Milo can untangle the mystery of the angry bear that is chasing him. It is also possible that the bad guys have underestimated the lengths Milo can go to when his own home and his own people are threatened.
>>><<<>>><<<
This is my second Milodragovitch novel and my fourth I think from Crumley. He is fast becoming one of my favorite modern noir authors. I guess I can say that I have joined the cult because, according to his bio, Crumley never achieved commercial success in his lifetime, but he got rave reviews and a cult following among other writers of crime novels.
He is raw and powerful and poetic in delivery, true to the genre origins and also incredibly bleak and violent without straying into Tarantino territory of making violence trendy and spectacular. “Enough people die in this world without my help, and I don’t think I can stand it anymore.” explains Milo about his decision to leave the PI business and his reluctance to terminate the guys who are stalking him. There’s always a bitter taste of defeat in his mouth every time the guns speak. A taste that can only be washed out in a bar.
Lord, did I want one. Whiskey for warmth in the gut, for fire to burn the ugly taste of violent death out of my throat, whiskey for laughter.
Milo’s world is not a pleasant one. Like his creator Crumley, Milo can often be found trying to drown his sorrows in a sleazy bar or two. As in the first book of the series, these scenes ring true to me, even as I know I cannot follow this gumshoe down his particular path to destruction.
The world was simply too crazy for me to handle sober. Maybe not the whole world, but at least the world where I lived – the bars and back streets, the shadows from which I watched, that world was too crazy for me to handle sober. Maybe to whole world was too crazy. Religious wars, political wars, economic wars ... Did that world out there reflect us? Or we, that world?
It’s called ‘noir’ for a reason, right? Crumley was also a teacher of literature and creative writing, and I think it shows in the way he can define a whole genre with a short phrase:
After death, the crossing over, we find neither heaven nor hell, not even happy hunting, but just more of the same sad, silly life we thought we left behind. Confusion and muddle, disorder and despair.
I have learned some things. Modern life is warfare without end: take no prisoners, leave no wounded, eat the dead – that’s environmentally sound.
I tried to steer away from spoilers after describing the opening moves of the case. For the sake of aiding my memory later down the line, the tags for the book should include bears and honey, Montana logging and winter scenes, investigative journalism, the Benniwah tribe and their legends, hot women of easy virtue, heavy drinking and drug use, corporate greed and environmental laws being broken... also the huge grizzly skin you can see on the cover.
“Think about it. This is big business,” she said, “and when you threaten their profits, they are ready to kill.”
I plan to continue with the Crumley books. Next one I think features his other detective, C. W. Sughrue.
February 26, 2024
5/5
After the first two books, Crumley's Milodragovitch series appears to be the most underrated noir series of all time. Dancing Bear is absolutely brilliant, the prose and the atmosphere is unparalleled but it is probably not meant for mass consumption. Ironically Christmas is probably the worst time to read it. It stands against everything that Christmas celebrates - hope, happiness, human decency.
Crumley has never been about plot and though this one is his best one yet, it is still not without holes and coincidences. Milo has made some changes after the events of The Wrong Case. He has substituted booze with cocaine and he is a security guard instead of a PI. So he stays stoned longer and works less. That ratio was skewed in the wrong direction to an alarming degree in the first book. To get lower than that is an achievement in itself. His father's old mistress asks him to follow a stranger which gets Milo involved with a bunch of really nasty guys. The overall narrative is not that important. The plot is more about great individual scenes. The setting is sadder than a two dollar whore's diary and more sordid than a child's cry that has not eaten for days. The situations however are absurdly funny and completely ridiculous. This dichotomy creates a sort of surreal atmosphere as if the story is a drunkard's retelling of facts.
For example, Milo goes on a stakeout and gets mistaken for a TV repairman by a curmudgeon. Milo later recruits him to spy on killers. Milo takes Simmons as backup who is a bigger junkie than him. There are crazier diversions when Milo becomes a drug dealer and when Milo tries to drink himself to death. Sounds like a shit book? Right. But take my word for it Crumley makes it work at least tonally.
The women characters are problematic. All of them are sexpots and all of them sleep with Milo at the drop of a hat. (There is a genuine in story reason for that, so I will let it skate.) While this will be a shameless male wish fulfillment fantasy elsewhere, that is not the case here because of lines like this - Ignorance might not be bliss, but too often knowledge took the fun out of some part of life. Milo's words after he sleeps with a man's wife who is madly in love with her. Then this one Nothing to do with love or sex or even comfort, but two frightened, befuddled animals seeking a warm place to weep. I have read more tragic books but nothing that treats hopelessness in such a matter of fact way. It is sad because Milo is never going to change and hopeless because he will never bother to try. The healthy dose of black humor still works which shows how good Crumley is.
Milo is the perfect protagonist for the story. He has only two emotions reserved for himself contempt and self-pity. Hold a gun to his head and tell him to come up with just one reason to keep himself alive, he will still be blank. This is not really a book for happy people. However if you are a full-time underachiever or someone who does his drinking alone and in excess then you might find Crumley knows you better than your shrink or spiritual leader. The only artist as unique as Crumley might be Tom Waits, neither of them are conventional but both undoubtedly possess a hint of the genius. At times Dancing Bear does not even feel like a crime story. It is a farce where we see a man self destruct where the journey is as funny as it is bleak. Will it work for most people? Hell no. For me it was one of the best books of the year.
Some more motivation for wrist slitting
I went inside like a man on his way to his own funeral.
It seemed that laughter had gone into hibernation for the season. Maybe just my drunken laughter, my cocaine giggles.
After the first two books, Crumley's Milodragovitch series appears to be the most underrated noir series of all time. Dancing Bear is absolutely brilliant, the prose and the atmosphere is unparalleled but it is probably not meant for mass consumption. Ironically Christmas is probably the worst time to read it. It stands against everything that Christmas celebrates - hope, happiness, human decency.
Crumley has never been about plot and though this one is his best one yet, it is still not without holes and coincidences. Milo has made some changes after the events of The Wrong Case. He has substituted booze with cocaine and he is a security guard instead of a PI. So he stays stoned longer and works less. That ratio was skewed in the wrong direction to an alarming degree in the first book. To get lower than that is an achievement in itself. His father's old mistress asks him to follow a stranger which gets Milo involved with a bunch of really nasty guys. The overall narrative is not that important. The plot is more about great individual scenes. The setting is sadder than a two dollar whore's diary and more sordid than a child's cry that has not eaten for days. The situations however are absurdly funny and completely ridiculous. This dichotomy creates a sort of surreal atmosphere as if the story is a drunkard's retelling of facts.
For example, Milo goes on a stakeout and gets mistaken for a TV repairman by a curmudgeon. Milo later recruits him to spy on killers. Milo takes Simmons as backup who is a bigger junkie than him. There are crazier diversions when Milo becomes a drug dealer and when Milo tries to drink himself to death. Sounds like a shit book? Right. But take my word for it Crumley makes it work at least tonally.
The women characters are problematic. All of them are sexpots and all of them sleep with Milo at the drop of a hat. (There is a genuine in story reason for that, so I will let it skate.) While this will be a shameless male wish fulfillment fantasy elsewhere, that is not the case here because of lines like this - Ignorance might not be bliss, but too often knowledge took the fun out of some part of life. Milo's words after he sleeps with a man's wife who is madly in love with her. Then this one Nothing to do with love or sex or even comfort, but two frightened, befuddled animals seeking a warm place to weep. I have read more tragic books but nothing that treats hopelessness in such a matter of fact way. It is sad because Milo is never going to change and hopeless because he will never bother to try. The healthy dose of black humor still works which shows how good Crumley is.
Milo is the perfect protagonist for the story. He has only two emotions reserved for himself contempt and self-pity. Hold a gun to his head and tell him to come up with just one reason to keep himself alive, he will still be blank. This is not really a book for happy people. However if you are a full-time underachiever or someone who does his drinking alone and in excess then you might find Crumley knows you better than your shrink or spiritual leader. The only artist as unique as Crumley might be Tom Waits, neither of them are conventional but both undoubtedly possess a hint of the genius. At times Dancing Bear does not even feel like a crime story. It is a farce where we see a man self destruct where the journey is as funny as it is bleak. Will it work for most people? Hell no. For me it was one of the best books of the year.
Some more motivation for wrist slitting
I went inside like a man on his way to his own funeral.
It seemed that laughter had gone into hibernation for the season. Maybe just my drunken laughter, my cocaine giggles.
June 12, 2012
Detective Milo Dragovitch is working as a security guard when an old family friend hires him to look into a curious case. Of course, the mystery only deepens and takes its twists. I like Mr. Crumley's fiercely, lyrical prose style, and his hard-nosed P.I. from Montana who casts a jaundiced eye at the seamy underbelly of the U.S. government. There's something to take away from his novels, and something meaty to think about long after you've reached the end. Good stuff.
December 16, 2025
Milo is an inverse Mike Hammer thriving in the 80s: an alcoholic rent-a-cop at 47 with a cocaine addiction waiting to cash in on large inheritance gained from greedy opportunistic grandfathers that also saddled him with depression, daddy issues and guilt. But a series of events lead him to a state of perpetual fear and paranoia, relying on the drugs and peppermint schnapps to keep him sane as he walks through the fire on a tightrope, struggling to resist the sirens perched on every cliff, summoning him to his doom and through the ordeal, he almost welcomes it.
I found this to be pure entertaining madness, with no concessions to anyone. It scales up and modernizes the Mike Hammer of the past and also does the work to make him more human with human morality, not some black and white version of it those books are always trying to sell you. Despite your best intentions to do the right thing the right way, someone always has to get hurt, and Milo wants to keep the body count low and be able to get some sleep without nightmares.
I found this to be pure entertaining madness, with no concessions to anyone. It scales up and modernizes the Mike Hammer of the past and also does the work to make him more human with human morality, not some black and white version of it those books are always trying to sell you. Despite your best intentions to do the right thing the right way, someone always has to get hurt, and Milo wants to keep the body count low and be able to get some sleep without nightmares.
April 16, 2018
Another tremendously executed piece of hard-boiled writing. PI Milo back for more sleuthing, when he can fit it in around the booze and drugs! And he manages to squeeze a woman or two in as well. Crumbly again weaves a great tale with great character and the poignancy of some serious social comment as well - exactly what I want from my hard-boiled and noir reads.
November 17, 2018
Part of my sudden interest in reading James Crumley was the news from this past spring which suggested Mel Gibson’s interest in adapting this book with famed Chinatown screenwriter Robert Towne. Gibson described the story as “basically Chinatown set in a 7-11 in 70s Montana, with a lot of cocaine.”
First and foremost, Mel Gibson is a lousy human being whose continued popularity in the film industry is a national disgrace. I hope he doesn’t make this movie. But I hope someone less vile than him does (the Coens, perhaps? They like westerns and noir.). Because Gibson’s description is accurate.
Like Chinatown, the plot is impossibly dense, to the point where the protagonist jokes about it in what has to be a meta moment. I didn’t really know what was going on until the end and even still, I don’t have a full grasp of it.
But I don’t read Crumley for the plots or mysteries, although this may be his best yet. I read him for the lush depictions of a northwest setting and fun dialogue. This isn’t different from other Crumley reads, except more convoluted. But it’s fun from start to finish. And it says a lot about what war does to the human condition.
I’ve now resolved myself to reading the entirety of the man’s canon and my only disappointment is there are but a handful of books left. I’m not a fan of Milo per se but I like his world and I find him to be an interesting enough tour guide.
First and foremost, Mel Gibson is a lousy human being whose continued popularity in the film industry is a national disgrace. I hope he doesn’t make this movie. But I hope someone less vile than him does (the Coens, perhaps? They like westerns and noir.). Because Gibson’s description is accurate.
Like Chinatown, the plot is impossibly dense, to the point where the protagonist jokes about it in what has to be a meta moment. I didn’t really know what was going on until the end and even still, I don’t have a full grasp of it.
But I don’t read Crumley for the plots or mysteries, although this may be his best yet. I read him for the lush depictions of a northwest setting and fun dialogue. This isn’t different from other Crumley reads, except more convoluted. But it’s fun from start to finish. And it says a lot about what war does to the human condition.
I’ve now resolved myself to reading the entirety of the man’s canon and my only disappointment is there are but a handful of books left. I’m not a fan of Milo per se but I like his world and I find him to be an interesting enough tour guide.
December 18, 2018
Milo Milodragovich, détective privé de son état et ancien policier, se tient tranquille comme agent de sécurité employé par le colonel Haliburton et tache de rester sobre en se contentant uniquement de quelques gorgées d’un infâme alcool de menthe, pour faire bonne mesure il enchaîne les lignes de cocaïne. Deux événement vont venir bouleverser ce relatif équilibre, un incident pendant son travail et la rencontre avec une ancienne maîtresse de son défunt père. Milo se retrouve pris par ces deux affaires qui ne tarderont pas à lui exploser au visage, il aurait du se méfier, cette affaire n’est pas aussi simple qu’il y paraît et son côté sentimental pourrait bien le perdre. L’hiver est rude, sombre et froid avec des forêts et des congères plus hautes que vous. Milo n’est pas fait pour la vie citadine et il me semble bien que c’est lui l’ours mal léché qui devant les difficultés s’enfuie au fin fond de la forêt là où l’ours à vraiment sa place.
Préparez vous à passer de longues heures de conduite dans des voitures louées même si ici l’intrigue en soi n’est pas ce qui compte vraiment, ce sont plutôt les personnages et les lieux, le Montana bien aimé de Crumley mais aussi l’Idaho et Washington. Et puis il y a le style incroyable de l’auteur, une prose surprenante, un esprit clair et affûté et des dialogues fabuleux qui nous font apprécier la lecture.
Milo rend parfaitement justice au héros imparfait, il nous met face à des questions d’ordre existentielles sur le sens de la vie, sur la mort. Je l’ai trouvé souvent confus et pourtant mine de rien d’une belle efficacité. Ce polar noir est trépidant et nous offre une vision du monde cynique et pourtant réjouissante à lire. Entre violence non-stop, abus de drogue et humour noir pour faire passer tout cela, on suit la vie désastreuse de Milo, mais que les criminels soient prévenus qu’ils ne devraient jamais à réveiller l’ours. Bonne lecture.
Préparez vous à passer de longues heures de conduite dans des voitures louées même si ici l’intrigue en soi n’est pas ce qui compte vraiment, ce sont plutôt les personnages et les lieux, le Montana bien aimé de Crumley mais aussi l’Idaho et Washington. Et puis il y a le style incroyable de l’auteur, une prose surprenante, un esprit clair et affûté et des dialogues fabuleux qui nous font apprécier la lecture.
Milo rend parfaitement justice au héros imparfait, il nous met face à des questions d’ordre existentielles sur le sens de la vie, sur la mort. Je l’ai trouvé souvent confus et pourtant mine de rien d’une belle efficacité. Ce polar noir est trépidant et nous offre une vision du monde cynique et pourtant réjouissante à lire. Entre violence non-stop, abus de drogue et humour noir pour faire passer tout cela, on suit la vie désastreuse de Milo, mais que les criminels soient prévenus qu’ils ne devraient jamais à réveiller l’ours. Bonne lecture.
November 12, 2022
La danse de l'ours est certainement mon roman de Crumley préféré pour l'instant. Son personnage Milo est le reflet des personnages créés par l'auteur. Un anti-héros détestable par son comportement, mais attachant par ses réflexions pertinentes sur le monde, son humour et son humanité. Tous les personnages sont assez variés et nuancés.
Crumley développe plus Milo, constamment à l'équilibre entre le bien et le mal. Il est plus naïf, plus humain. Il traite, avec ses personnages, d'une société américaine post-guerre qui ne finit pas d'évoluer à grande vitesse, transformant les espaces et les relations sociales, qui délaisse notre héros. Toutes les thématiques sur les espaces naturels transformés et les impacts environnementaux sont bien trouvés.
Le style de Crumley, très noir, vient aussi être nuancé par un humour toujours bien amené. C'est agréable de cynisme et de beauté, par des dialogues et des scènes hyper dynamiques, ou par la description d'un Montana, premier impacté par l'évolution de la société.
Difficile d'aller le déloger dans mon top
Crumley développe plus Milo, constamment à l'équilibre entre le bien et le mal. Il est plus naïf, plus humain. Il traite, avec ses personnages, d'une société américaine post-guerre qui ne finit pas d'évoluer à grande vitesse, transformant les espaces et les relations sociales, qui délaisse notre héros. Toutes les thématiques sur les espaces naturels transformés et les impacts environnementaux sont bien trouvés.
Le style de Crumley, très noir, vient aussi être nuancé par un humour toujours bien amené. C'est agréable de cynisme et de beauté, par des dialogues et des scènes hyper dynamiques, ou par la description d'un Montana, premier impacté par l'évolution de la société.
Difficile d'aller le déloger dans mon top
November 8, 2021
Gonzo PI- like a Sam Spade novel filtered through Hunter S Thompson. Crumley nails the jittery and unreliable coke bender, where things just kind of happen with no rhyme or reason.
March 13, 2015
Ο Μίλο Μιλοντράγκοβιτς είναι ένας μεσήλικας πρώην ιδιωτικός αστυνομικός που ζει στην Μοντάνα και δουλεύει για λογαριασμό μιας εταιρείας ασφαλείας που ανήκει στον συνταγματάρχη Χάλιμπέρτον. Μέχρι να φτάσει τα πενήντα δυο και να γίνει δικαιούχος μιας τεράστιας κληρονομιάς που του άφησε ο πατέρας του, θα πρέπει να τα βγάζει πέρα με δικά του λεφτά. Και, διάολε, δεν τα βρίσκει εύκολα. Γι'αυτό και δεν αρνείται μια φαινομενικά απλή δουλειά που του αναθέτει μια πλούσια κυρία, που πολλά χρόνια πριν είχε μια ερωτική σχέση με τον πατέρα του. Η γριά, μιας και δεν έχει πολλά πράγματα να κάνει, συνηθίζει να αγναντεύει την υπέροχη θέα από το μπαλκόνι της, με ειδικά κιάλια. Ε, μ'αυτά παρατήρησε ότι μια συγκεκριμένη μέρα και ώρα, ένας άντρας και μια γυναίκα συναντιούνται σ'ένα σημείο και συζητάνε. Ξέρετε πόσο περίεργοι είναι οι γέροι, έτσι; Ε, θέλει να μάθει ποιοι είναι οι δυο αυτοί άνθρωποι και τι λένε. Τότε είναι που ο Μίλο θα μπλέξει σε μια απίστευτη ιστορία με μια τεράστια εταιρεία εκμετάλλευσης τοξικών αποβλήτων και σκουπιδιών που έχει πολλά πράγματα να κρύψει και έχει τους κατάλληλους άντρες να βγάζουν από την μέση τους περίεργους...
Το βιβλίο δεν φτάνει το επίπεδο του Τελευταίου Φιλιού, που είναι από τα καλύτερα νουάρ που έχουν γραφεί ποτέ, όμως οπωσδήποτε πρόκειται για ένα εξαιρετικό δείγμα του είδους. Η ιστορία είναι άκρως ενδιαφέρουσα, με μυστήριο, ανατροπές και πολλή δράση. Η γραφή εξαιρετική και άκρως ευχάριστη με πολύ ωραίο χιούμορ. Δεν είναι και λίγες οι ατάκες και οι προτάσεις που αξίζουν μια υπογράμμιση και μνημόνευση. Και ο Μίλο είναι ένας τρελός τυπάς, που ρουφάει κόκα και πίνει ένα κάρο σναπς την ημέρα προσπαθώντας να κόψει το αλκοόλ. Και όλο σκέφτεται τα λεφτά που θα κληρονομήσει και πως θα την κάνει από την κρύα Μοντάνα για κάνα ζεστό μέρος στην Καλιφόρνια ή το Μεξικό. Είναι ωραίος τύπος, δίκαιος, με έφεση στις γυναίκες αλλά και με μια ροπή προς το μπλέξιμο σε άγριες ιστορίες.
Μιας και το Τελευταίο Φιλί είναι χρόνια εξαντλημένο, αυτό είναι το μοναδικό βιβλίο του συγγραφέα που μπορείτε να βρείτε στα ελληνικά. Και μπορείτε να το βρείτε με έξι περίπου ευρώ στην Πολιτεία. Αν θέλετε, λοιπόν, μια εξαιρετικά καλογραμμένη σκληρή αστυνομική ιστορία, με μυστήριο, δράση και χιούμορ, σίγουρα θα κάνετε μια πολύ καλή επιλογή διαβάζοντάς το. Εγώ, πάλι, θα δοκιμάσω τον Κράμλεϊ και στ'αγγλικά, γιατί είναι από τους συγγραφείς που μ'αρέσουν και δεν θέλω να μείνω στα δυο βιβλία.
Το βιβλίο δεν φτάνει το επίπεδο του Τελευταίου Φιλιού, που είναι από τα καλύτερα νουάρ που έχουν γραφεί ποτέ, όμως οπωσδήποτε πρόκειται για ένα εξαιρετικό δείγμα του είδους. Η ιστορία είναι άκρως ενδιαφέρουσα, με μυστήριο, ανατροπές και πολλή δράση. Η γραφή εξαιρετική και άκρως ευχάριστη με πολύ ωραίο χιούμορ. Δεν είναι και λίγες οι ατάκες και οι προτάσεις που αξίζουν μια υπογράμμιση και μνημόνευση. Και ο Μίλο είναι ένας τρελός τυπάς, που ρουφάει κόκα και πίνει ένα κάρο σναπς την ημέρα προσπαθώντας να κόψει το αλκοόλ. Και όλο σκέφτεται τα λεφτά που θα κληρονομήσει και πως θα την κάνει από την κρύα Μοντάνα για κάνα ζεστό μέρος στην Καλιφόρνια ή το Μεξικό. Είναι ωραίος τύπος, δίκαιος, με έφεση στις γυναίκες αλλά και με μια ροπή προς το μπλέξιμο σε άγριες ιστορίες.
Μιας και το Τελευταίο Φιλί είναι χρόνια εξαντλημένο, αυτό είναι το μοναδικό βιβλίο του συγγραφέα που μπορείτε να βρείτε στα ελληνικά. Και μπορείτε να το βρείτε με έξι περίπου ευρώ στην Πολιτεία. Αν θέλετε, λοιπόν, μια εξαιρετικά καλογραμμένη σκληρή αστυνομική ιστορία, με μυστήριο, δράση και χιούμορ, σίγουρα θα κάνετε μια πολύ καλή επιλογή διαβάζοντάς το. Εγώ, πάλι, θα δοκιμάσω τον Κράμλεϊ και στ'αγγλικά, γιατί είναι από τους συγγραφείς που μ'αρέσουν και δεν θέλω να μείνω στα δυο βιβλία.
November 12, 2015
James Crumley is the perfect author for the person who reads Raymond Chandler and says, "I guess it was O.K., but it could have used a lot more sex, drugs, alcohol, gun play and explosions." Also, just my own two cents worth, but Milo Milodragovitch is a much better and more fully conceived character than Crumley's other, somewhat more famous creation, C.W. Sughrue. While the latter often comes across as something of a redneck male fantasy, Milodragovitch wears his faults on his sleeve: He can barely control his alcoholism, doesn't even pretend to have a handle on his coke habit, his personal life's a shambles, and he'll cop to being scared out of his wits in situations while Sugrhue is always just taking names and kicking ass. All of these traits make Milodragovitch a much easier character for me to relate to.
As for the story itself, the first few chapters do sort of meander through wistful descriptions of the Western countryside (particularly Crumley's beloved Montana), as this author is wont to do. Then, about a third of the way in the action begins in earnest with (literally) a bang, and doesn't really let up for the rest of the novel. The whole plot probably wouldn't hold up to intense scruitiny - some environmentalist this or that serves as a good McGuffin to cause thugs with guns to chase our hero. But really, Dancing Bear works best if you just kick back, down a couple shots of peppermint schnapps like Milo would (he'd probably also do a few lines, but you can discuss that among yourselves...) and enjoy the ride.
As for the story itself, the first few chapters do sort of meander through wistful descriptions of the Western countryside (particularly Crumley's beloved Montana), as this author is wont to do. Then, about a third of the way in the action begins in earnest with (literally) a bang, and doesn't really let up for the rest of the novel. The whole plot probably wouldn't hold up to intense scruitiny - some environmentalist this or that serves as a good McGuffin to cause thugs with guns to chase our hero. But really, Dancing Bear works best if you just kick back, down a couple shots of peppermint schnapps like Milo would (he'd probably also do a few lines, but you can discuss that among yourselves...) and enjoy the ride.
August 15, 2018
Ένα καταπληκτικό νουάρ από τον τρομερά υποτιμημένο James Crumley του "Τελευταίου Φιλιού". Αυτό όταν το πρωτοδιάβασα στεναχωρήθηκα με το τέλος του και αυτό επισκίασε την συνολική μου άποψη για το έργο, όμως δεν θα κολλήσω σε τίποτα τέτοιο εδώ. Μυστήριο με οικολογικές προεκτάσεις, ο "Χορός της Αρκούδας" είναι μια ιστορία που μοιάζει πολύ με σενάριο ταινίας που θα μπορούσαν να γυρίσουν οι αδερφοί Κοέν. Ο δε πρωταγωνιστής, Μίλο Μιλοντραγκόβιτς, είναι ένας τύπος που, αν δεν ήταν κατεστραμμένος από την κόκα και το ποτό, θα ήταν ένας πολύ καλός τύπος που πιο συχνά προσπαθεί να κρατήσει τα προσχήματα και να μην αφήσει πτώματα πίσω του. Κι ας το κάνει. Γενικά αυτό το βιβλίο το προτείνω σε όσους δεν θέλουν αποκλειστικά μια αιματηρή περιπέτεια αλλά ένα μυστήριο που θα τους εξάψει το ενδιαφέρον και θα τους χαλαρώσει, σε σημεία, όμως από κάποια στιγμή και ύστερα θα φανεί η σοβαρότητα της κατάστασης και στο τέλος θα τους αφήσει με μια μελαγχολία για όσα έγιναν και για τις σελίδες που έφυγαν.
December 2, 2022
Judging a book by its cover. The mid-eighties saw a new publishing craze called "Vintage Contemporaries" with inspired whimsical graphic covers adapted to gonzo writers; McGuane and McInerny, to name a few. They're eye-catching, still, on contemporary fiction shelves and if I spot one will snatch it up practically out of reflex. Crumley is a first for me; squarely planted in the hardboiled ilk of the down-and-dirty private dick that if he doesn't find trouble, it finds him soon enough (usually in the curvy vessel of a dame taking him for a chump, and for a ride). Illusive creatures, these so-called gentler species are dangerous, even for hardened detectives of hard drink (and/or drugs) on the case who should know better. Like so many writers whose pedigree includes the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Crumley did a sketchy detective novel for his M.F.A. thesis. Inspired by the noirish genius of Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, and Dashiell Hammett, Crumley's take on the genre passes for a good knock-off. But in all fairness to the mastered craft of his predecessors, his shortcomings don't really do the comparisons justice. Nor any that some would connect the dots with to Hunter S. Thompson (the protagonist's voracious cocaine habit, notwithstanding). Bad guys are trying to kill the anti-hero named Milo--short for Milton Chester Milodragovitch--who is a night security watchman following a previously failed practice as a PI. From the 1975 prequel "The Wrong Case." His main line of work then was providing supporting evidence--photos, tapes, receipts etc., busting cheaters in divorce cases--an enterprise which was no longer viable after no-fault reform reduced litigation to the mere acknowledgement of irreconcilable differences. That was in the past. When he guzzled whiskey to wretched excess; now a reformed schnapps drinker. He's cutting back. Right. Eschewing law "enforcement"--not the cop-type--he'd also staked his former reputation as a sheriff's deputy for 10 years in Meriwether County, Montana. So he's in a nowhere job and takes on a freelance assignment that looks simple enough and done. Easy money. Like his old job. A stakeout. Some tailing of the parties in question to identify a couple who meets every Thursday afternoon for six weeks at a park, and who has piqued the curiosity of a rich, older woman (one of his father's old flings) who puts him on the case. She sees them arrive in separate cars from her balcony. The woman is in her twenties, he in his forties. They sit in her car for an hour or so, then they leave separately. Well, nothing is what it seems. And invariably, Milo is drawn into a life-threatening labyrinthine scenario where a multinational criminal outfit is doing very bad things on a very big scale and trying to take him out for being little more than a nuisance. On both sides, each underestimates the other. It's a quick read and Crumley is at his best when the coke-crazed gun play mixes it up. And when the seedier, threatening types Milo falls in with become drug-dealing allies. While in other entanglements, the women he'd ordinarily only fantasize about, become strange bedfellows. Through most of the first-person narrative, Milo (and therefore the reader) has no clue as to what is happening. Or happening next. That's understandable. But what is not is his belabored rambling of directions in a thin book with agonizing specificity designating highway routes taken and distances, street names block-by-block, even off-road logging trails as he transits countless locations between Washington, Idaho, Montana, not to mention--once he's in Seattle--ALL the island ferries which criss-cross Puget Sound. Even after living there and knowing these firsthand, along with the islands, it was too much. Map-obsessed. One other striking fixation that detracted from his prose was his propensity (laziness?) for relying upon the most over-used cliches. Maybe only a dozen if one were to count them. But a dozen too many. Pretty sure Iowa's Writers' Workshop doesn't turn out 40 Pulitzer Prize winners without schooling them to avoid one of the dead give-aways of an amateur. Finally, the story's structure is problematic. Untangling a meandering thread of a plotline that backtracks and twists back into itself. Then, the ending collapses into a vivid compression of violence where all the king pins conveniently present themselves as a concentrated target in a remote firefight. No less caught in a bribery transaction providing $40K in dirty money and evidence that Milo can use to extort them; an insurance policy to prevent retaliation--his demise bringing disclosure that would shut their operation down. Quite miraculously--and by extraordinary circumstances of luck--Milo, who all along has been in trouble way out of his league, somehow pulls it off. And still even more amazingly, in the last chapter of only ten pages, the author neatly resolves the pay-outs to settle all accounts. Milo's benevolence, in spite of all the killing, is admirable if one is willing to suspend their disbelief. But it effectively clears his conscience and he returns to his previous low-key existence. Holding out as a bartender, slumming in a cheap room, getting by until his 52nd birthday. Counting the days when he will finally inherit the estate bequeathed to him by his rich, late father. As in the last sentence he writes it all off. Only wanting to "wait, survive the winters, and when the "ton of money" (sic) comes, let the final dance begin." Terrible ending. Made worse by the bad guys buying off would-be prosecutors and regulators getting away with "business" as usual. And the wasting of a rare, illegally poached silver-tipped grizzly rug. A taxidermy trophy complete with head and glass eyes. He burns it. And that is one less bear that will never again dance. Finis.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 16, 2008
Crumley's books are a gas, murder mysteries involving the seedy underbelly of cast-aways and ne'er do wells. Combine Tony Hillerman mysteries and Fear and Loathing. Funny and suspensful, you might exclaim vocally at times so try not to appear as though you have turret syndrome. I met this author in the carribean in 2001, a friendly codger, so unusual fellow, we've been friends since as we found we had another friend in common. Over the course of his life, he's written a novel every 10 years. All of them great reads, fun, silly, crazy, and never fail to have a good ending.
April 17, 2012
James Crumley is among the very best of the hardboiled fiction writers. Yes, the plot is rehashed and the ending a little trite, but I don't think you read Crumley for the plot. You read him for his amazing prose, razor sharp wit and dialogue that crackles off the page. He's very nearly as good as Chandler and praise doesn't come much higher than that.
December 9, 2025
Better than the other crumleys in that it is less over-written, and the womanizing and drug use are so exaggerated, so extreme and dumb and outrageous, that they are surely the tale your drunken stepfather would tell you after bursting into your childhood room in the dead of night after forgetting how the tv works.
The Paul Bacon cover is one of the best book covers I’ve ever seen though.
The Paul Bacon cover is one of the best book covers I’ve ever seen though.
June 13, 2018
Classic tough guy detectives drink a fair amount, and so does our hero here. Milo Milodragovitch knows all too well that he is an alcoholic. He’s trying to control the problem by drinking only peppermint schnapps, hoping that its awful taste will keep his intake down. But alcohol is not the only drug that Milo also takes an interest in. The character of the detective hero has evolved a little by the time we get to the eighties. From the early days, here is Raymond Chandler’s character Philip Marlowe commenting on a potential client’s mansion at the start of Farewell My Lovely:
The house itself wasn’t much, it was smaller than Buckingham Palace, and probably had fewer windows than the Chrysler Building.
Forty-odd years later the hero of Dancing Bear also visits a client’s home:
The solarium was even larger than it looked from the street...sunlight flooded the huge room through three walls of French doors and two huge skylights; so much light so suddenly that I seemed not only blinded but deafened too...An array of Oriental throw rugs broke up some of the light as it reflected off the pale oak flooring, but most of sunlight glanced off the floor and plunged like tiny knives into my already bleary eyes. I had done either too much coke or too little, a constant problem in my life.
Tiny knives notwithstanding, our hero is offered a job, a simple matter that promises a generous fee for a few days of easy work. Milo is an ex-policeman who was fired from the force; but unlike most of the detective heroes we have nowadays, he has had little success on his own. Milo is in fact working as a security guard, perhaps the lowest form of life in the detective novel world. All the more reason for him to accept this new job offer. His understanding boss allows him a leave of absence so he can go private for a few days. As it happens, Milo’s client hasn’t told him the whole story, not even close. In fact, Milo probably should have been suspicious, should have known it wouldn’t be so easy. Other modern detectives might have asked more questions, might never have taken the job. Milo, though, is a sentimentalist and a sucker for a pretty face and figure. He is also a drunk; good judgment is not his strong suit.
The plot of Dancing Bear is hectic and a little confused, touching on toxic waste, poaching, drug smuggling and quite a bit more. It features numerous costume changes and lots of long distance driving in a succession of rented cars. But plots, per se, don’t matter all that much in noir detective stories. They’re just convenient racks upon which to hang the important stuff: the characters, the places, and the voice. And that’s exactly where Crumley shines. Dancing Bear is set mostly in Montana and centers on the fictional town of Meriwether, which seems likely to be modeled on Missoula. But, as I said, there’s a lot of traveling involved, from Elk City, Idaho to Butte, Montana to Seattle. And wherever we go, there is a tremendous authenticity of place. It’s wintertime up here in the north, dark and bitter cold, with lots of trees. Milo hasn’t had much success as defined by civilization; it is he, of course, who is the bear, uncomfortable and only half alive in the city. When Milo runs into trouble, he flees deep into the forest, where the bear is competent and powerful. Similarly, when Crumley runs into trouble resolving his plot, he simplifies things by taking the action to some cabin far away from town.
I can’t help comparing Dancing Bear to the classic British style mystery stories, the kind where the detective’s job is simply to find and reveal. In these stories some unknown person’s jagged passions have rent the fabric of polite society. The detective arrives and begins asking questions, all the while watching and thinking. Using classical logic, the investigator determines the motive and identifies the guilty party, who is then removed. The fabric of society is neatly repaired.
In Milo’s world, anyone who cares to look can see that the fabric of society is tattered past repair before we even start. The central issues are not so much logical as existential. What was the crime exactly? How did I get in so deep so fast? How do I get out of this alive? Milo, too, asks questions and watches and thinks, but he is a romantic figure, not a classical one. Finding and revealing in themselves are useless. Trying to out-think the villains doesn’t help; desperate action is required, and even the best outcomes are ugly, the victories partial at best. The seeds of this are all in Chandler, as is the notion of the flawed hero, and to some extent these ideas figure into the noir styles of many other authors. But Crumley goes the farthest. Other detective heroes are smarter and in various ways more successful--think Spencer, Travis McGee, or Easy Rawlins. Milo is flailing and confused. But let the bad guys of the world be warned; you should never wake up the bear.
The house itself wasn’t much, it was smaller than Buckingham Palace, and probably had fewer windows than the Chrysler Building.
Forty-odd years later the hero of Dancing Bear also visits a client’s home:
The solarium was even larger than it looked from the street...sunlight flooded the huge room through three walls of French doors and two huge skylights; so much light so suddenly that I seemed not only blinded but deafened too...An array of Oriental throw rugs broke up some of the light as it reflected off the pale oak flooring, but most of sunlight glanced off the floor and plunged like tiny knives into my already bleary eyes. I had done either too much coke or too little, a constant problem in my life.
Tiny knives notwithstanding, our hero is offered a job, a simple matter that promises a generous fee for a few days of easy work. Milo is an ex-policeman who was fired from the force; but unlike most of the detective heroes we have nowadays, he has had little success on his own. Milo is in fact working as a security guard, perhaps the lowest form of life in the detective novel world. All the more reason for him to accept this new job offer. His understanding boss allows him a leave of absence so he can go private for a few days. As it happens, Milo’s client hasn’t told him the whole story, not even close. In fact, Milo probably should have been suspicious, should have known it wouldn’t be so easy. Other modern detectives might have asked more questions, might never have taken the job. Milo, though, is a sentimentalist and a sucker for a pretty face and figure. He is also a drunk; good judgment is not his strong suit.
The plot of Dancing Bear is hectic and a little confused, touching on toxic waste, poaching, drug smuggling and quite a bit more. It features numerous costume changes and lots of long distance driving in a succession of rented cars. But plots, per se, don’t matter all that much in noir detective stories. They’re just convenient racks upon which to hang the important stuff: the characters, the places, and the voice. And that’s exactly where Crumley shines. Dancing Bear is set mostly in Montana and centers on the fictional town of Meriwether, which seems likely to be modeled on Missoula. But, as I said, there’s a lot of traveling involved, from Elk City, Idaho to Butte, Montana to Seattle. And wherever we go, there is a tremendous authenticity of place. It’s wintertime up here in the north, dark and bitter cold, with lots of trees. Milo hasn’t had much success as defined by civilization; it is he, of course, who is the bear, uncomfortable and only half alive in the city. When Milo runs into trouble, he flees deep into the forest, where the bear is competent and powerful. Similarly, when Crumley runs into trouble resolving his plot, he simplifies things by taking the action to some cabin far away from town.
I can’t help comparing Dancing Bear to the classic British style mystery stories, the kind where the detective’s job is simply to find and reveal. In these stories some unknown person’s jagged passions have rent the fabric of polite society. The detective arrives and begins asking questions, all the while watching and thinking. Using classical logic, the investigator determines the motive and identifies the guilty party, who is then removed. The fabric of society is neatly repaired.
In Milo’s world, anyone who cares to look can see that the fabric of society is tattered past repair before we even start. The central issues are not so much logical as existential. What was the crime exactly? How did I get in so deep so fast? How do I get out of this alive? Milo, too, asks questions and watches and thinks, but he is a romantic figure, not a classical one. Finding and revealing in themselves are useless. Trying to out-think the villains doesn’t help; desperate action is required, and even the best outcomes are ugly, the victories partial at best. The seeds of this are all in Chandler, as is the notion of the flawed hero, and to some extent these ideas figure into the noir styles of many other authors. But Crumley goes the farthest. Other detective heroes are smarter and in various ways more successful--think Spencer, Travis McGee, or Easy Rawlins. Milo is flailing and confused. But let the bad guys of the world be warned; you should never wake up the bear.
September 2, 2019
"I heard their voices but not the words, and they seemed far away, as if we all stood in the brilliant salt-air haze of some Mexican Pacific beach, paralyzed by the sun and the softly pounding surf, reduced into an infinite languor, language lost in the muffled, sun-struck crash of the waves in the throbbing air."
I have been afflicted by the curse of often finding books that are promising and captivating at the beginning, and then deteriorate into incoherent or implausible mess. I have even begun suspecting that maybe the fault lies with me being too excited about a new book at the beginning and then too fussy about details as the plot progresses. But no, I have checked quite a number of my reviews of crime novels and similar genres and only about a third of them exhibit the deterioration of quality as the plot develops. Alas, James Crumley's Dancing Bear (1983) is a prime example of that unfortunate category.
The novel begins strongly: the Native American tale about a dancing Brother Bear, the description of the narrator's fight with the hapless mailman, and the banter with Gail are captivating. The setup of the plot, where the narrator is hired by an elderly woman, Sarah, with whom he had been "boyishly in love" 40 years ago, is really excellent. The reader will even find snippets of beautiful prose - like the passage quoted in the epigraph above - which show Mr. Crumley's literary gifts. But then... shooting and killing begins. Killing and shooting. Geysers and rivers of blood. Ludicrous, contrived, gratuitous.
Anyway, the narrator is one Milo (short for Milton Milodragovitch), a late-middle-age burnt-out PI and rent-a-cop for a private security company, a heavy coke addict and alcoholic who stays sober by drinking only peppermint schnapps that he hates. Milo is waiting for his father's "ton of money" that he will inherit when he turns fifty-two, which event can't come soon enough for him. Sarah, who happens to be his father's ex-lover, hires him to investigate strange going-ons in her neighborhood. In the meantime, his boss in the security company gives him a tailing job. Naturally, as required by a cliché literary device, the two cases eventually merge.
Yet shooting and killing begins earlier. The reader is offered geysers of blood:
Two-and-a-half stars.
I have been afflicted by the curse of often finding books that are promising and captivating at the beginning, and then deteriorate into incoherent or implausible mess. I have even begun suspecting that maybe the fault lies with me being too excited about a new book at the beginning and then too fussy about details as the plot progresses. But no, I have checked quite a number of my reviews of crime novels and similar genres and only about a third of them exhibit the deterioration of quality as the plot develops. Alas, James Crumley's Dancing Bear (1983) is a prime example of that unfortunate category.
The novel begins strongly: the Native American tale about a dancing Brother Bear, the description of the narrator's fight with the hapless mailman, and the banter with Gail are captivating. The setup of the plot, where the narrator is hired by an elderly woman, Sarah, with whom he had been "boyishly in love" 40 years ago, is really excellent. The reader will even find snippets of beautiful prose - like the passage quoted in the epigraph above - which show Mr. Crumley's literary gifts. But then... shooting and killing begins. Killing and shooting. Geysers and rivers of blood. Ludicrous, contrived, gratuitous.
Anyway, the narrator is one Milo (short for Milton Milodragovitch), a late-middle-age burnt-out PI and rent-a-cop for a private security company, a heavy coke addict and alcoholic who stays sober by drinking only peppermint schnapps that he hates. Milo is waiting for his father's "ton of money" that he will inherit when he turns fifty-two, which event can't come soon enough for him. Sarah, who happens to be his father's ex-lover, hires him to investigate strange going-ons in her neighborhood. In the meantime, his boss in the security company gives him a tailing job. Naturally, as required by a cliché literary device, the two cases eventually merge.
Yet shooting and killing begins earlier. The reader is offered geysers of blood:
"His left leg was gone below the knee, his right above, and blood gushed from the nerve on his cheek, and most of his fingers were stubs, the pink, pork-chop flesh not bleeding yet."Wait; there's more:
"[...] I made sure the dead were really dead. Nobody at home in Blondie's head, the little guy swallowed his tongue, choked on his own blood, and the actor's buttocks jiggled like jelly when I shook them with my foot [...]"The plot takes place in western Montana and neighboring states: the author masterfully depicts the rugged landscapes and the tough people of the land. The prose is full of dark and rather grim humor; being a sworn enemy of private gun ownership I laughed out loud when I read the following passage:
"[...] a private investigator by the name of Shepard, when asked by a journalist if he carried a gun in his work, replied,So, despite the utterly ridiculous plot, despite the incessant shooting and killing and gushing blood, I can offer a very marginal recommendation. For the setup, for Montana landscapes, and dark humor.
'Hell, no. If somebody wants to shoot old Shepsy, they're gonna have to bring their own gun.'"
Two-and-a-half stars.
April 21, 2021
Gritty. Violent. Milo Milodragovitch began as a pretty unsympathetic character, drugging his way through life in backwoods western Montana, in a wood house overlooking Hell Roaring Creek Canyon. He owned another area of inherited forest land nearby, but was fenced out because he wouldn't sell and had to drive miles around the fencing to get to it. Milo was from a wealthy family whose wealth was built by his grandfather, partially by acquiring land from Native Americans and others by methods not unusual but not admirable either. His parents had both committed suicide, separately. He lived rough, made his way through a number of jobs, and did jobs for Haliburton Security. Before her death, his mother had had the foresight to stipulate that he couldn't claim his inheritance until his fifty-second birthday, so he was waiting expected that at that time, he probably would snort and drink himself to death.
When Milo received a request to meet about a job from Sarah Weddington in nearby Meriwether, Montana, he had no idea who she was, but thought he could use the extra cash. It turned out, she was (possibly) his philandering father's one true love. They met when young Milo, on a deep-woods fishing with his father, had hooked his ear with a fishhook. They had tromped through the woods, discovered a cabin where they hoped to find tools appropriate to extricate the hook, and stumbled upon Sarah Weddington left isolated by her traveling husband. Milo developed something of a crush on her himself; he hadn't seen her since his father's suicide.
Sarah's tenuous health and odd request sent Milo on an undesired hunt that involved pretty much every illicit undertaking anyone, small group or international corporation, could imagine. Somehow, in spite of his constant cocaine, schnapps, and occasional devastating whiskey binge, I found myself pulling for his success.
When Milo received a request to meet about a job from Sarah Weddington in nearby Meriwether, Montana, he had no idea who she was, but thought he could use the extra cash. It turned out, she was (possibly) his philandering father's one true love. They met when young Milo, on a deep-woods fishing with his father, had hooked his ear with a fishhook. They had tromped through the woods, discovered a cabin where they hoped to find tools appropriate to extricate the hook, and stumbled upon Sarah Weddington left isolated by her traveling husband. Milo developed something of a crush on her himself; he hadn't seen her since his father's suicide.
Sarah's tenuous health and odd request sent Milo on an undesired hunt that involved pretty much every illicit undertaking anyone, small group or international corporation, could imagine. Somehow, in spite of his constant cocaine, schnapps, and occasional devastating whiskey binge, I found myself pulling for his success.
April 20, 2024
What seems like an easy job for Milo, turned security guard from failed PI, takes off like a raging blizzard. Milo is bored with sitting behind one-way mirrors in convenience stores, until a young thief shows up to rob one. The gruesome end to the would-be robber is oddly funny. At that point, Milo tries to quit, but his boss allows him to take a surveillance job for a couple days, before giving him a couple paid weeks off to reconsider.
Before Milo can even get that done, he ends up getting sucked into a much more complicated international drug ring with hostages, missing people, and general shithousery in every direction.
The book shows people suffering from addictions, mental illness and lack of employment opportunities in Native American communities in Montana. It describes the theft of land from Natives and all the broken treaties. It also points out the lack of environmental protection for marginalized groups. All this was from the 1970s, so one would think that these issues would have been addressed. One would be wrong.
There are a couple scenes where Crumley's writing gets a bit fantastical, but it effectively puts the reader into the middle of the conflicts a hard-nosed veteran, turned PI, with addiction problems encounters as he tries to make his community right again.
Before Milo can even get that done, he ends up getting sucked into a much more complicated international drug ring with hostages, missing people, and general shithousery in every direction.
The book shows people suffering from addictions, mental illness and lack of employment opportunities in Native American communities in Montana. It describes the theft of land from Natives and all the broken treaties. It also points out the lack of environmental protection for marginalized groups. All this was from the 1970s, so one would think that these issues would have been addressed. One would be wrong.
There are a couple scenes where Crumley's writing gets a bit fantastical, but it effectively puts the reader into the middle of the conflicts a hard-nosed veteran, turned PI, with addiction problems encounters as he tries to make his community right again.
March 5, 2025
"The small insane encounter with the biker had shaken me more than I could admit. I was tired of being half drunk, or half sober, tired of measuring out those shots of candied alcohol. The world was simply too crazy for me to handle sober. Maybe not the whole world, but at least the world where I lived--the bars and back streets, the shadows from which I watched, that world was too crazy for me to handle sober. Maybe the whole world was too crazy. Religious wars, political wars, economic wars...Did that world out there reflect us? Or we, that world?" (121)
"Here I thought i had been playing gunfire games with something as nice as a large drug ring, and it turns out that I am playing hardball with a multinational corporation with a gross profit larger than two thirds of the countries in the world" (200).
"My intentions were the best, my reasons endless. My hometown had died in side me, and I craved sunshine and simplicity. I made it as far as Red bluff, California, where I gave up, turned around, headed home, back into the heart of one of the worst Montana winters in years. Some things you can change, some you can't. A few months after the government put the regulation against liquid toxic waste in landfill into effect, they suspended it. For further study, or something" (228)
"Here I thought i had been playing gunfire games with something as nice as a large drug ring, and it turns out that I am playing hardball with a multinational corporation with a gross profit larger than two thirds of the countries in the world" (200).
"My intentions were the best, my reasons endless. My hometown had died in side me, and I craved sunshine and simplicity. I made it as far as Red bluff, California, where I gave up, turned around, headed home, back into the heart of one of the worst Montana winters in years. Some things you can change, some you can't. A few months after the government put the regulation against liquid toxic waste in landfill into effect, they suspended it. For further study, or something" (228)
August 2, 2019
My third Crumley book and the best so far, yes I liked it even more than, "The Last Good Kiss". I do wonder what younger people think of this book, those who weren't alive or don't remember the late 70s and the first half of the 80s. It was a bit implausible then, but it certainly wouldn't have read that way if the setting had been in the present, ripe with social media, instant information and security cameras.
It really is a wonderful if frantic ride. I guess that's the cocaine. Still I couldn't put this book down for very long. So engaging and well done. Milo is a very sympathetic mess and relatively honest hero. Sure he's an out in the open user, but hey it's the time. Almost seems tame compared to the current drug problem. If you're a uptight prude you won't lie this book or for that matter anything very much. If you're not, well dig in and enjoy.
It really is a wonderful if frantic ride. I guess that's the cocaine. Still I couldn't put this book down for very long. So engaging and well done. Milo is a very sympathetic mess and relatively honest hero. Sure he's an out in the open user, but hey it's the time. Almost seems tame compared to the current drug problem. If you're a uptight prude you won't lie this book or for that matter anything very much. If you're not, well dig in and enjoy.
November 16, 2017
Funny, tough neo-noir set in Montana, Idaho, Washington. I'm glad I stuck with it. The narrator/protagonist has a great voice, but felt a bit off-putting at first, especially in his relations with women. I wouldn't say he's redeemed, necessarily, by the end, but many aspects of the narrative have been cast in a new light by then, and you look back and see rather a lot of female characters with a lot of internal life, motivations, and approaches to morality. Which, any reader of noir/detective stuff will tell you, is rather refreshing.
The narrative is littered with a lot of funny vignettes and good stretches of dialogue. Worth a look for sure.
The narrative is littered with a lot of funny vignettes and good stretches of dialogue. Worth a look for sure.
July 11, 2021
If you could 'read' a Coen Brothers movie, this would be it. "Dancing Bear", written in the early 80's, has all of the elements of most Coen Brothers films: funny dialog, unusual characters, cartoon violence, frenetic action, and deep convictions. While the plot is convoluted and difficult to follow at times, the dangerous journey of the hero, Milo, is entertaining and gripping. The chapter early in the book where he botches a surveillance job and meets the elderly Abner is one of the funniest things I've read in years. Temper that with the extreme violence that occurs later in the book and "Dancing Bear" is a dynamic, noirish novel that sticks with you.
September 24, 2023
Born and raised in a town in the western United States, Milo Dragovich is from a wealthy family who experienced the Korean War and runs a nihilistic private detective business that indulges in alcohol and cocaine. One day, his father's mistress, Granny Sara sked him to investigate the ``Two People'', and as he pursues them, a small incident turns into a big evil, and even involves an international organization. It was quite wild, with some spectacular gunfights. There are many beautiful women, but they are also quite hard and tough... It was an impressive work with a slightly different perspective and depth from the so-called ordinary hard-boiled films.
November 17, 2024
This book has a frenetic pace, which fits the story and the character very well. The use of energy through the actions of the characters and the pace of the story, really drives the atmosphere of the book. The plot is good, the character I think is an improvement over the first book, and in general I appreciated the story and the building on the character from just being a drunk cokehead, to having some ldepth to him.
March 30, 2025
Mon dieu Milo, dans quelle affaire est-ce que tu t'es fait embarquer cette fois-ci ?!
Sex, drugs mais pas trop de rock and roll... plutôt de la violence inouïe...
Dans le Montana, ce sont des dûrs à cuire, vraiment. Mais Milo a un cœur honnête et tendre, malgré tout. Puis, il respecte les seuls Indiens qui restent de la tribu des Benniwah, à côté des hectares de bois héritées de sa famille et volées jadis à ces mêmes Indiens...
Et comme tout enfant du Montana, il aime son pays.
Sex, drugs mais pas trop de rock and roll... plutôt de la violence inouïe...
Dans le Montana, ce sont des dûrs à cuire, vraiment. Mais Milo a un cœur honnête et tendre, malgré tout. Puis, il respecte les seuls Indiens qui restent de la tribu des Benniwah, à côté des hectares de bois héritées de sa famille et volées jadis à ces mêmes Indiens...
Et comme tout enfant du Montana, il aime son pays.
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