Boobytrap

Nameless Detective #25

by Bill Pronzini

Emotionally exhausted from the events surrounding his partner's suicide, "Nameless" welcomes the chance for a quiet vacation that comes when San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Patrick Dixon proposes that the burnt-out detective drive Dixon's wife and son to their summer cottage on a remote High Sierra lake. In exchange, "Nameless" will have a week's free use of a neighboring cabin. The same week, unknown to both the assistant D.A. and "Nameless, " also among the vacationers at Deep Mountain Lake is a recently paroled explosives expert, Donald Michael Latimer. The timing is not coincidental, for Latimer has meticulously devised a warped plan for revenge against the men who sent him to prison. His viciously ingenious boobytraps have already claimed the lives of two of his intended victims, and at Deep Mountain Lake he has lined up his next three targets: Pat Dixon, Dixon's twelve-year-old son, and "Nameless" himself.

Genres: Mystery

256 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1998

About the author

Mystery Writers of America Awards "Grand Master" 2008
Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1999) for Boobytrap
Edgar Awards Best Novel nominee (1998) for A Wasteland of Strangers
Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (1997) for Sentinels
Shamus Awards "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) 1987
Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1982) for Hoodwink

Married to author Marcia Muller.

Pseudonyms:
Robert Hart Davis (collaboration with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)
Jack Foxx
William Jeffrey (collaboration with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)
Alex Saxon

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

\I have to give Bill Pronzini credit: even when he uses cliché tropes of the genre, ones I particularly dislike, he often treats them so meticulously, so ingeniously that I end up liking his book any.

Take Booby Trap, for example. It features a serial killer (I hate serial killers!) who keeps a journal (I hate it when they keep a journal!), whose every murder is symbolically appropriate to the victim (I hate symbolically appropriate murders!). The planned murder involves the victim’s teenage son (I hate it when they involve the children!), and the novel ends with a race against time to save the victim from falling into a trap (I hate races against time! I hate traps!)

Yet I still like this book. The killer in this case is a serial bomber, and the care with which he chooses symbolic pieces of shrapnel is an unsual variation of the symbol-ridden serial killer theme. The child is a boy we come to like and respect, and the chase—instead of being filled with more cliches—features a fat aging hero, stumbling and out of breath (the Nameless Detective, of course) and the trap, when it comes, is not corny and cliched, but simple and utterly terrifying.

The first third kept me guessing, the second third won me over, and the last third was a helluva ride. I still hated the serial bomber’s journal though. I really hate it when they keep a journal!

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like to pretend I am a very literary reader. But, secretly, I love to read mysteries and would read them constantly. So, I have come up with a rule for myself that I must read at least two "literary" books and then I can reward myself with the mind-numbing enjoyment of a mystery. Bill Pronzini is so prolific in his writing that it's hard to count the books he has published (I think he and his wife, Marcia Muller, are in first and second place to get the "most books published in a lifetime" award. I am not sure about their individual placement in the contest). But this book, BoobyTrap, won the 1999 SHAMUS AWARD for Pronzini for the "Best P. I Hardcover." I had never read it . So it became my "go to" book once I had labored through my two requisite "literary" works. YOWZA. I loved it. From the git-go, he has you hooked on the plot - and takes you for a ride right to the very satisfactory ending. You can't help but like "the nameless detective" too - overweight, wrung out, getting old, wheezing, but still capable of getting "his man." OK - back to two more heavyweight "literaries" for me before I can make another run at Pronzini and any one of about 100 "nameless detective" books. Pick one - any one.

[Maddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

PROTAGONIST: Nameless Detective
SETTING: Sierras, California
SERIES: #28 of 43
RATING: 3.25
WHY: Nameless takes a long-needed vacation in the Sierras. He's gotten a cabin by driving the wife and son of Pat Dixon, Assistant DA in San Francisco, to the area and plans to spend his time fishing. Meanwhile, Donald Michael Latimer has been released from prison and is on a mission to kill those who sent him there. His method is to build bombs that do maximum damage to his targets. Dixon is on his list, and he's in the area under an assumed name. I didn't really care for the device Pronzini used of devoting chapters to Latimer's notebooks, and I found some of what Latimer did to be quite implausible. The sense of danger was strong, but the plot was marred by some obvious clichés.

[John Grazide · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started a little rough and slow. But once Nameless got to the cabin, it got better.

When a trip he an Kerry were planning didn't pan out, he gets the chance to go to a nice cabin by himself and spend a week fishing. All he has to do is drive the wife and son of a friend to the cabin next to the one he'll be staying in because the husband, a ADA, is tied up with court. But of course a quiet vacation isn't in the cards for Nameless when the ADA is next on a hit list by a recently paroled crazy person. Who likes to use bombs to kill.

Also in this one, I think the first time (or that I can remember), Nameless is referred to by name, Bill. By the son of the ADA.

[Tasula · Rating 1 out of 5]

Big disappointment for me. After reading glowing reviews of the Nameless Detective series by this author, this was just a pedestrian thriller, much of it written as part of the diary of a murderer. The detective who stumbles into trouble while attempting a fishing vacation, made silly mistakes which one would think an experienced detective could have avoided.

I did like some of the author's other books though.

[Barbara Nutting · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read 2013

[D. Norman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read as usual.

[Sam G.C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Small rural places are a Bill's speciality. I would love to go fishing and not catch a fish.
Another great one on the series.

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

A bit different this round, as the whodunnit is semi-cleared up by the perp's journal entries, so more of a whathappensasheduzit. But still amazing.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is a list of all the books (in order) Happy Reading.

1971 The Snatch Random House
1973 The Vanished Random House
1973 Undercurrents Random House
1977 Blowback Ramdom House
1978 Twospot Putman
1980 Laybrinth St. Martin's Press
1980 A Killing In Xanadu Waves Press
1981 Hoodwinked St. Martin's Press
1982 Scattershot St. Martin's Press
1982 Dragonfire St. Martin's Press
1983 Bindlestiff St. Martin's Press
1983 Casefile St. Martin's Press
1984 Quicksilver St. Martin's Press
1984 Nightshades St. Martin's Press
1984 Double St. Martin's Press
1985 Bones St. Martin's Press
1985 Grave Yard Plots St. Martin's Press
1886 Dreadfall St. Martin's Press
1988 Shackles St. Martin's Press
1988 Small Fellonies St. Martin's Press
1990 Jackpot Delacorte
1991 Breakdown Delacorte
1992 Quarry Delacorte
1992 Epitaths Delacorte
1993 Demons Delacorte
1995 Hardcase Delacorte
1996 Spadework Crippen & Landru
1996 Sentinels Carroll & Graf
1997 Illusions Carroll & Graf
1998 Boobytrap Carroll & Graf
1999 Sluths Five Star
1999 Duo Five Star
2000 Crazybones Carroll & Graf
2002 Bleeders Carroll & Graf
2003 Spook Carroll & Graf
2003 Scenarios Five Star
2005 Nightcrawlers Forge
2006 Mourners Forge
2007 Savages Forge
2008 Feaver Forge
2009 Schemers Forge
2010 Betrayers Forge
2011 Camouflage Forge
2012 Hellbox Forge
2012 Kinsmen Cemetery Dance
2012 Femme Cemetery Dance
2013 Nemesis Forge

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nameless can't even take a vacation without being in the thick of things. Nameless goes fishing in the High Sierras in Plumas County and gets a good deal- a free cabin and all he has to do is drive up a lawyer friend's family. It just so happens that a parolee has plans for the lawyer and his family. Good suspense and plot as you know the perp is there observing the innocents but you don't know his identity during most of the book. It's predictable an unpredictable at the same time. Fast and compelling read.

[Jmrathbone · Rating 2 out of 5]

There isn’t much to this book; Bill Pronzini really worked at stretching it out to fill 213 pages. Interesting plot; about a bomber out to exact revenge against those who put him in prison for five years. The Nameless Detective goes on a fishing vacation, but discovers more fishy things than the trout he had intended to catch. The Booby Trap bomber is also at the same resort, and the “ND” and the bomber soon cross paths.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bill Pronzini has been writing about the Nameless Detective for years. He writes such enjoyable thrillers, they shouldn't be missed.

In this story, Nameless is asked to drive a man's wife and son to their vacation home, not knowing that a mad bomber has recently been released from jail and wants revenge on those who sent him there.

The lake area is well described and the suspension mounts in a way in which the reader's attention is grabbed and held to the conclusion of the story.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to an abridged version of this story and after reading the blurb about the story, I realize it was a poorly done abridgement! The main story line was there, I'm sure ... but, had I just listened to it independently of knowing it was the next story in the series, I would not have known it was a Nameless detective story! How sad is that? I was wondering why it had been included in the listing for the series. This is why I don't like abridged versions.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading another "Nameless Detective" book is like eating comfort food. Great literature? No, but Pronzini writes a good mystery. I've been slowly working my way through the series, and I hope Pronzini writes them faster than I read them. Then I may have to try one of his westerns. However, as I've said before one of the things I like about his books and Marcia Muller's is the locale. And I don't think that any western will take place in San Francisco! LOL

[Sidney · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a good bit of set-up in this tale as Nameless heads off on a fishing vacation, though interspersed journal entries from a madman who plants deadly devices keep reminding there's trouble ahead. Once the dire situation and a race against time begins, the book's really pulse pounding as Nameless fights to resolve a deadly game with a friend as a key target.

[Michael Katz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a crime/mystery fan and only discovered Bill Pronzini last September. Since then I have read maybe a dozen of his over 70 novels. He has a series called the "Nameless Detective" plus other offerings and they are all terrific. Boobytrap was very good. Bill Pronzini, as far as I am concerned is a hidden treasure.

[Alecia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am giving this book a 2.5/5 rating. I think I read this one before, but I am on vacation and this was there to be read. I really like Bill Pronzini, but his earlier works don't hold up to some of his later books.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#25 in the Nameless Detective series. 1999 Shamus Award for Best Novel.

Nameless Detective' goes trout fishing in the mountains and gets involved in an ex-con's explosive vendetta against those who convicted and jails him. Nameless gets addressed as 'Bill' on page 118.

[Richard]

the nameless has a first name ??? Bill????

[Joe O'Connor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very Good; Continuing character: "Nameless" detective; while on vacation, a private detective is faced with a bomber after those who put him in prison previously.

[Diane Clavette · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Nameless detective continues to entertain.

[Kathleen Noe · Rating 3 out of 5]

liked it...will read more of his books.

[Eliana]

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

[Kathleen Meacham · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mostly boring

[Harry Addington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good mystery.

[Tracyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This should be a 4.5 or higher rating, just not quite a five. I liked it a lot.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: Nameless welcomes the chance for a short vacation at the ADA's cottage; he's unaware a murderer awaits.

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poor no-name slob can't even take a normal vacation.