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C.W. Sughrue #2
The Mexican Tree Duck
WINNER OF THE DASHIELL HAMMETT AWARDOne night up in Montana, C.W. Sughrue sets his seedy bar’s pricey jukebox in front of an oncoming freight train. When predictable results ensue, he needs to find a way to make some money and pay back the jukebox company. So even though Sughrue’s officially retired from P.I. work, he picks up one small-time case involving some kidnapped fish. That fishy trail leads to a much bigger case involving a Texas politician's kidnapped wife, a valuable piece of pre-Columbian pottery, and a single mother who packs guns and stolen goods in her infant son's diaper bag.
274 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1993
103 people are currently reading
712 people want to read
About the author
James Crumley
60 books311 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the author of violent hardboiled crime novels and several volumes of short stories and essays, as well as published and unpublished screenplays.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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May 6, 2019
”It wasn’t a party that a Republican could understand--the marijuana smoke sweet on the air, the occasional cocaine sniffle, cold Mexican beer, good food, great conversation, and laughter--but a Parisian deconstructionist scholar might find it about as civilized as America gets. Or at least the one I met, who was visiting at UTEP, maintained. Somewhere along the way, he claimed, Americans had forgotten how to have a good time. In the name of good health, good taste, and political correctness from both sides of the spectrum, we were being taught how to behave. America was becoming a theme park, not as in entertainment, but as in a fascist Disneyland.”
The Swirls around him are a good indication that Crumley is composing this book in his head.
The novel opens with C.W. Sughrue hauling his jukebox out to the train tracks with the express purpose of watching the 3:12 freight train explode it into a thousand pieces.
Tequila might be the problem.
Okay, Tequila was for sure involved.
This jukebox had given him many hours of entertainment over the years and would have given him many more except for the tasteless bastard who comes around to shuffle the records. He had the audacity to replace all the Hank Snow songs, rendering the jukebox absolutely worthless.
Train fodder.
One last bit of entertainment, and then he can start counting down the minutes until his head starts to feel like an overripe melon getting ready to split under the hot noon day sun. He might even have regrets.
Sughrue lives in what used to be a morgue. His buddy from Vietnam, Solly Rainbolt, owns the building and lets him stay there in exchange for small investigative favors. Sughrue has retired from the P.I. game and become a bartender who happens to own a bar. He didn’t buy it. The bar was more like gifted to him as the owner made tracks South.
It is hard to stay retired when one is flat busted.
His friend, Norman, needs him to find his mother, so after some hee-hawing back and forth, several lines of coke, and a few beers for stabilization, Sughrue finds himself back on a case. His only lead takes him to the Tex-Mex border, and that is when what should make sense begins to make no sense. It doesn’t take him long to realize that mommy dearest is married to a slick Texas politician, and drug lords and the FBI are competing to find her first. How could a woman so beautiful be in so much trouble?
He enlists the aid of some of his old pals from Vietnam who may not miss Vietnam, but they do miss the heady tang of violence and the comradery of having a mission. Sughrue finds a statue of a Mexican Tree Duck which becomes the Maltese Falcon of this story.
Mexican Tree Duck
And just like in Red Harvest the bodies start piling up only faster because instead of revolvers everyone in this story has left over firepower from the war. James Crumley sprinkles the text with hardboiled dialogue that could peel wallpaper.
”Just assume the position, asshole, or they’ll be serving romaine and pepper-belly brains tonight.”
It just goes to show know your restaurant, know your restaurant well.
There is wild, passionate, last night on Earth type sex involving an undercover New Mexico Sheriff in one bizarre case. There are double crosses that intersect other double crosses making them...well...I’m not sure. Do they multiply or cancel each other out? There are Vietnam flashbacks. There are DEA agents, FBI agents and agents from government agencies that we aren’t supposed to know exist. Just to keep himself straight Sughrue is forced to keep lighting up his brain like a pinball machine on tilt with a steady supply of nose candy. There are a hundred reasons why Sughrue should just return to Montana and maybe buy a record player and a pile of Hank Snow records, but he has been knocked around one too many times and now revenge is riding in the sidecar with his own pecular sense of loyalty.
It has been decades since I’ve read a James Crumley. I know at one time I was saving them because there are so few, but I never intended to wait this long to read the next one. Funny how that happens when a guy has a few thousand books at his fingertips to pick from every time he goes into his library to grab that next book. Reading back through this review I know it sounds like this is just another Rambo Vietnam Vet story, but there is certainly literary value. Crumley is one of those guys who was being read by the spinner rack reader as well as the college professor. He knows how to compose a sentence and certainly there were times when amongst the chaos of the plot when I had to take a moment and let a sentence dangle an extra few seconds on my tongue.
The Swirls around him are a good indication that Crumley is composing this book in his head.
The novel opens with C.W. Sughrue hauling his jukebox out to the train tracks with the express purpose of watching the 3:12 freight train explode it into a thousand pieces.
Tequila might be the problem.
Okay, Tequila was for sure involved.
This jukebox had given him many hours of entertainment over the years and would have given him many more except for the tasteless bastard who comes around to shuffle the records. He had the audacity to replace all the Hank Snow songs, rendering the jukebox absolutely worthless.
Train fodder.
One last bit of entertainment, and then he can start counting down the minutes until his head starts to feel like an overripe melon getting ready to split under the hot noon day sun. He might even have regrets.
Sughrue lives in what used to be a morgue. His buddy from Vietnam, Solly Rainbolt, owns the building and lets him stay there in exchange for small investigative favors. Sughrue has retired from the P.I. game and become a bartender who happens to own a bar. He didn’t buy it. The bar was more like gifted to him as the owner made tracks South.
It is hard to stay retired when one is flat busted.
His friend, Norman, needs him to find his mother, so after some hee-hawing back and forth, several lines of coke, and a few beers for stabilization, Sughrue finds himself back on a case. His only lead takes him to the Tex-Mex border, and that is when what should make sense begins to make no sense. It doesn’t take him long to realize that mommy dearest is married to a slick Texas politician, and drug lords and the FBI are competing to find her first. How could a woman so beautiful be in so much trouble?
He enlists the aid of some of his old pals from Vietnam who may not miss Vietnam, but they do miss the heady tang of violence and the comradery of having a mission. Sughrue finds a statue of a Mexican Tree Duck which becomes the Maltese Falcon of this story.
Mexican Tree Duck
And just like in Red Harvest the bodies start piling up only faster because instead of revolvers everyone in this story has left over firepower from the war. James Crumley sprinkles the text with hardboiled dialogue that could peel wallpaper.
”Just assume the position, asshole, or they’ll be serving romaine and pepper-belly brains tonight.”
It just goes to show know your restaurant, know your restaurant well.
There is wild, passionate, last night on Earth type sex involving an undercover New Mexico Sheriff in one bizarre case. There are double crosses that intersect other double crosses making them...well...I’m not sure. Do they multiply or cancel each other out? There are Vietnam flashbacks. There are DEA agents, FBI agents and agents from government agencies that we aren’t supposed to know exist. Just to keep himself straight Sughrue is forced to keep lighting up his brain like a pinball machine on tilt with a steady supply of nose candy. There are a hundred reasons why Sughrue should just return to Montana and maybe buy a record player and a pile of Hank Snow records, but he has been knocked around one too many times and now revenge is riding in the sidecar with his own pecular sense of loyalty.
It has been decades since I’ve read a James Crumley. I know at one time I was saving them because there are so few, but I never intended to wait this long to read the next one. Funny how that happens when a guy has a few thousand books at his fingertips to pick from every time he goes into his library to grab that next book. Reading back through this review I know it sounds like this is just another Rambo Vietnam Vet story, but there is certainly literary value. Crumley is one of those guys who was being read by the spinner rack reader as well as the college professor. He knows how to compose a sentence and certainly there were times when amongst the chaos of the plot when I had to take a moment and let a sentence dangle an extra few seconds on my tongue.
September 1, 2016
Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll Hank Snow!
Plus an all-consuming hatred for authority and enough guns and ammo for a small army.
The book opens with a jukebox dumped in front of an oncoming train, blaring some crappy “80’s tune (It’s not mentioned which one, but I’m assuming it falls under the Boy George/Wham/Rick Astley umbrella). What follows is drinking, depression and money problems. Down and out in Montana! There’s no place to go but to take a job recovering tropical fish from the local biker lord/drug dealer.
This kind of approach is the perfect antidote for the straight and narrow PI stuff. No diamond-in-the-rough rainbow coalition of companions; no annoying, Harvard educated food-challenged girlfriend; no gourmet cooking; no silly man code; no waxing of the mustache; no darning of socks – get high, kick the door in, and go in swinging/shooting and maybe get laid somewhere along the way.
This is how C. W. Sughrue operates. If it can be done well, it should be done under the influence of booze and/or narcotics. Driving in the middle of the road might be a smoother more predictable experience, but you miss the interesting bumps and oddballs you’d run across in the gutter.
If you are into the Private Investigator genre and have never read anything by Crumley, go check his books out – they’re first rate; sadly, there aren’t many of them. He’s got a savage wit and his writing is more than just about solving the case, it’s about trying to keep the devil hound at bay and carve out some sort of place in the world without sinking into the black pit of despair.
This was a Hammett Prize winner and a New York Times Notable book the year it was published.
Let’s-drink-your-favorite-literary-legend-under-the-table Department:
There’s a bar stool dedicated to Crumley at this place, located in Missoula, Montana. When I used to live in New York City, I used to grab a few at a place called the White Horse Tavern. Dylan Thomas once sat in the same spot every night and drank himself into oblivion. People used to inquire about it often and drive the staff crazy. Crumley’s tribute seems much cooler and a more deserved and perfect destination if I was doing a world-wide bar crawl of famous literary bars.
Plus an all-consuming hatred for authority and enough guns and ammo for a small army.
The book opens with a jukebox dumped in front of an oncoming train, blaring some crappy “80’s tune (It’s not mentioned which one, but I’m assuming it falls under the Boy George/Wham/Rick Astley umbrella). What follows is drinking, depression and money problems. Down and out in Montana! There’s no place to go but to take a job recovering tropical fish from the local biker lord/drug dealer.
This kind of approach is the perfect antidote for the straight and narrow PI stuff. No diamond-in-the-rough rainbow coalition of companions; no annoying, Harvard educated food-challenged girlfriend; no gourmet cooking; no silly man code; no waxing of the mustache; no darning of socks – get high, kick the door in, and go in swinging/shooting and maybe get laid somewhere along the way.
This is how C. W. Sughrue operates. If it can be done well, it should be done under the influence of booze and/or narcotics. Driving in the middle of the road might be a smoother more predictable experience, but you miss the interesting bumps and oddballs you’d run across in the gutter.
If you are into the Private Investigator genre and have never read anything by Crumley, go check his books out – they’re first rate; sadly, there aren’t many of them. He’s got a savage wit and his writing is more than just about solving the case, it’s about trying to keep the devil hound at bay and carve out some sort of place in the world without sinking into the black pit of despair.
This was a Hammett Prize winner and a New York Times Notable book the year it was published.
Let’s-drink-your-favorite-literary-legend-under-the-table Department:
There’s a bar stool dedicated to Crumley at this place, located in Missoula, Montana. When I used to live in New York City, I used to grab a few at a place called the White Horse Tavern. Dylan Thomas once sat in the same spot every night and drank himself into oblivion. People used to inquire about it often and drive the staff crazy. Crumley’s tribute seems much cooler and a more deserved and perfect destination if I was doing a world-wide bar crawl of famous literary bars.
May 14, 2019
For somebody who loved The Last Good Kiss, I found this a disappointing novel--rambling, discursive and out of control. Because Crumley is still a helluva writer, many of the set-pieces--like the marvelous beginning--are wonderful. But, all taken together, they do not add up to a book.
December 28, 2012
When a biker buddy hires him to find his birth mother, Sughrue takes the case, only to find himself ensnared in a web of drugs, sex, drugs, likes, drugs, murder, and a baby named Lester. Sughrue puts together a band of his misfit war buddies and goes on the hunt. But every damn person he talks to is lying to him...
If Raymond Chandler and Hunter S. Thompson were able to mate successfully, their offspring would be a lot like James Crumley. His books read like Dr. Gonzo pretending to be Philip Marlowe, drug-filled road trips where nothing is as it seems.
Like a lot of PI novels, the case seemed simple at first. However, when a biker's mom happens to be the wife of an energy tycoon and Mexican drug runners are also after her, things get complicated in a hurry.
I found the characters in The Mexican Tree Duck to be much more likeable than the ones in The Last Good Kiss. Jimmy, the hotheaded former postal worker, and Frank, the black/Mexican/Samoan cop dying of cancer, and even Wynona, were much more likeable than the characters from the first book. The Dahlgren twins were a hoot and I hope they make further appearances. I also found myself getting attached to baby Lester, even though everyone connected to him was more full of shit than one of Lester's dirty diapers.
I find C.W. Sughrue to be a very compelling lead character, full of flaws but still with some redeeming qualities. If Philip Marlowe is a shop-soiled Galahad, Sughrue's like Lancelot after he fled Camelot and went wild trying to forget about his feelings for Guinevere with drink and violence (see, I read more than just detective books). It's a shame Crumley only wrote a few books starring him.
The plot was a lot more complex than I ever thought it would be, with Norman, Joe Don, Sarita, and Wynona being who they were. Much like Chandler's books, Sughrue spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the hell was going on. His writing also shows a Chandler influence in the similes.
The Mexican Tree Duck of the title barely makes an appearance but is pretty memorable when it does. I wish I had a replica to put on my bookcase.
After much deliberation, I'm giving this a high 4. I liked it more than the Last Good Kiss but not enough for five stars.
If Raymond Chandler and Hunter S. Thompson were able to mate successfully, their offspring would be a lot like James Crumley. His books read like Dr. Gonzo pretending to be Philip Marlowe, drug-filled road trips where nothing is as it seems.
Like a lot of PI novels, the case seemed simple at first. However, when a biker's mom happens to be the wife of an energy tycoon and Mexican drug runners are also after her, things get complicated in a hurry.
I found the characters in The Mexican Tree Duck to be much more likeable than the ones in The Last Good Kiss. Jimmy, the hotheaded former postal worker, and Frank, the black/Mexican/Samoan cop dying of cancer, and even Wynona, were much more likeable than the characters from the first book. The Dahlgren twins were a hoot and I hope they make further appearances. I also found myself getting attached to baby Lester, even though everyone connected to him was more full of shit than one of Lester's dirty diapers.
I find C.W. Sughrue to be a very compelling lead character, full of flaws but still with some redeeming qualities. If Philip Marlowe is a shop-soiled Galahad, Sughrue's like Lancelot after he fled Camelot and went wild trying to forget about his feelings for Guinevere with drink and violence (see, I read more than just detective books). It's a shame Crumley only wrote a few books starring him.
The plot was a lot more complex than I ever thought it would be, with Norman, Joe Don, Sarita, and Wynona being who they were. Much like Chandler's books, Sughrue spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the hell was going on. His writing also shows a Chandler influence in the similes.
The Mexican Tree Duck of the title barely makes an appearance but is pretty memorable when it does. I wish I had a replica to put on my bookcase.
After much deliberation, I'm giving this a high 4. I liked it more than the Last Good Kiss but not enough for five stars.
December 16, 2020
James Arthur Crumley podría haber sido un poeta genial.
Aunque su narrativa es dura, sus descripciones rezuman pura poesía: "saboreé los tendones de su cuello, la carne musculosa de sus muslos".
Los personajes de Crumley son fantásticos; las aventuras que les pasan; la disparidad de personalidades: un abogado tullido, un militar bajito y otro enorme, una hiriente mujer y su bebé, etc. Muy original.
La lástima es que la trama se complica demasiado y llegas a perderte entre tanta mentira. Pero ha sido una lectura brutal.
Esta novela no llega a la cota sublime de "El Último Buen Beso", pero se acerca bastante.
James Arthur crumley could have been a brilliant poet.
Although his narrative is harsh, his descriptions ooze pure poetry: "I tasted the sinews of her neck, the muscular flesh of her thighs."
Crumley's characters are fantastic; the adventures that happen to them; the variety of personalities: a crippled lawyer, a small military man and an enormous one, a hurting woman and her baby, etc. Very original.
The pity is that the plot is too complicated and you get lost among so many lies. But it was a brutal reading.
This novel does not reach the sublime level of "The last good kiss", but it comes quite close.
Aunque su narrativa es dura, sus descripciones rezuman pura poesía: "saboreé los tendones de su cuello, la carne musculosa de sus muslos".
Los personajes de Crumley son fantásticos; las aventuras que les pasan; la disparidad de personalidades: un abogado tullido, un militar bajito y otro enorme, una hiriente mujer y su bebé, etc. Muy original.
La lástima es que la trama se complica demasiado y llegas a perderte entre tanta mentira. Pero ha sido una lectura brutal.
Esta novela no llega a la cota sublime de "El Último Buen Beso", pero se acerca bastante.
James Arthur crumley could have been a brilliant poet.
Although his narrative is harsh, his descriptions ooze pure poetry: "I tasted the sinews of her neck, the muscular flesh of her thighs."
Crumley's characters are fantastic; the adventures that happen to them; the variety of personalities: a crippled lawyer, a small military man and an enormous one, a hurting woman and her baby, etc. Very original.
The pity is that the plot is too complicated and you get lost among so many lies. But it was a brutal reading.
This novel does not reach the sublime level of "The last good kiss", but it comes quite close.
November 7, 2012
C.W. Sughrue isn’t your typical private detective. He considers the holy trinity of the 20th century to be cash, drugs and firepower, and he uses huge amounts of all three to work his cases. A Vietnam veteran who ping pongs between paranoia, sentimentality, anger and depression, Sughrue scares even his craziest friends sometimes. And he knows a lot of crazy people.
Things have been slow in the private detective game in Montana. Sughrue has been trying to run a bar, but when the responsibility of getting the plumbing fixed gets to be too much and his favorite songs are taken off the jukebox, Sughrue ends the jukebox’s existence by putting it on the railroad tracks in front of an on-coming train. The booze and cocaine made it seem like a good idea at the time.
With lawsuits and bills piling up following that stunt, Sughrue takes a job repossessing some tropical fish from the leader of a biker gang. Fortunately, that gig ends peacefully after Sughrue makes everyone see reason with the help of an M-60 machine gun, and the biker asks Sughrue to take a new job looking for his long lost mother. Unfortunately, she’s just been the victim of a kidnapping and the FBI is all over it along with gangs of angry drug runners. Somehow Sughrue ends up with a young mother and a baby, and he recruits some of his old army buddies to join him on a cross country journey that is fueled by alcohol, drugs and war stories.
Crumley is one of my favorite crime writers, and it’s a shame he only wrote a handful of books before his death. But he made them all memorable. His books are like a hybrid of Raymond Chandler, Hunter Thompson, and Joe Lansdale. The plot zigzags wildly with major events dealt with in a few sentences and abrupt shifts in locations and tone, but since our protagonist does more than his fair share of booze and drugs, the crazy plot makes you feel like you’re along for the ride with Sughrue.
Things have been slow in the private detective game in Montana. Sughrue has been trying to run a bar, but when the responsibility of getting the plumbing fixed gets to be too much and his favorite songs are taken off the jukebox, Sughrue ends the jukebox’s existence by putting it on the railroad tracks in front of an on-coming train. The booze and cocaine made it seem like a good idea at the time.
With lawsuits and bills piling up following that stunt, Sughrue takes a job repossessing some tropical fish from the leader of a biker gang. Fortunately, that gig ends peacefully after Sughrue makes everyone see reason with the help of an M-60 machine gun, and the biker asks Sughrue to take a new job looking for his long lost mother. Unfortunately, she’s just been the victim of a kidnapping and the FBI is all over it along with gangs of angry drug runners. Somehow Sughrue ends up with a young mother and a baby, and he recruits some of his old army buddies to join him on a cross country journey that is fueled by alcohol, drugs and war stories.
Crumley is one of my favorite crime writers, and it’s a shame he only wrote a handful of books before his death. But he made them all memorable. His books are like a hybrid of Raymond Chandler, Hunter Thompson, and Joe Lansdale. The plot zigzags wildly with major events dealt with in a few sentences and abrupt shifts in locations and tone, but since our protagonist does more than his fair share of booze and drugs, the crazy plot makes you feel like you’re along for the ride with Sughrue.
July 1, 2024
After the tame opening scenes of Montana private investigator C.W. Sughrue making a point about Hank Snow by setting a jukebox on the railroad tracks ahead of a speeding train and repossessing stolen tropical fish from a biker gang by threatening a full-scale attack with WWII-era .50 caliber machine guns, the action starts to pick up. He gathers a posse of old buddies from 'Nam and sets out on an alcohol- and drug-fueled quest through the West to find the mother of his client, the biker gang leader, with breaks for sex with every attractive woman he meets and gunplay with an ever-increasing cast of bad guys. You'll love it if you go for this kind of thing.
January 24, 2015
Okay, okay, okay. It was almost a solid four star.
This was another great read by James Crumley, a mystery series starring C. W. Sughrue, P. I.
Crumley published his first book on Vietnam in 1969. He wrote for more than four decades beginning in 1969 and ending in 2005. His style is colorful and clear with wonderful descriptions of the west. Sughrue travels around the countryside, the western United States, like he owns every parcel.
The only reason I fussed with the three vs four for this book, was the storyline got so confusing towards the end I wasn't sure who was who...good Mexicans...no those were the bad Mexicans, NOT, the good ones! I didn't know who was bad and who was good and by about 80 pages I didn't much care. Not sure I ever recovered from that lengthy confusion.
And C.W. sure likes his drugs a lot more in this, the second in the series. He mentioned drugs a couple of times in the first book but I didn't feel he stayed drunk and stoned and whacked out with coke. This one...well, he does sober up a couple of times. He's still fun though and Crumley's writing sparkles.
This was another great read by James Crumley, a mystery series starring C. W. Sughrue, P. I.
Crumley published his first book on Vietnam in 1969. He wrote for more than four decades beginning in 1969 and ending in 2005. His style is colorful and clear with wonderful descriptions of the west. Sughrue travels around the countryside, the western United States, like he owns every parcel.
The only reason I fussed with the three vs four for this book, was the storyline got so confusing towards the end I wasn't sure who was who...good Mexicans...no those were the bad Mexicans, NOT, the good ones! I didn't know who was bad and who was good and by about 80 pages I didn't much care. Not sure I ever recovered from that lengthy confusion.
And C.W. sure likes his drugs a lot more in this, the second in the series. He mentioned drugs a couple of times in the first book but I didn't feel he stayed drunk and stoned and whacked out with coke. This one...well, he does sober up a couple of times. He's still fun though and Crumley's writing sparkles.
October 21, 2023
Naturally, I came here. The tequila tasted as smooth as the smoky sunlight.
When the going gets tough, the tough goes to Montana.
C. W. Sughrue, tough as nails Vietnam veteran and hard drinking private dick, hides from his troubles in a local bar he acquired during his investigations. One of his problems is that he tends to drink up his own stock and then he gets rowdy and mean. After an incident with a jukebox and a train collision, Sughrue has to hide away in the basement of his lawyer Solly, a former war veteran himself, famous for defending drug lords in court. He takes on Sughrue as a charity case.
“Nothing like sleeping in a morgue to give an old boy bad dreams and sobriety.”
More or less against his will, Sughrue gets back in the saddle, with a first case involving the recovery of pet tropical fish from the most dangerous local drug dealer, the Abnormal Norman, a case that curiously also brings a Sherman tank into the proceedings.
Laughter and booze aside, the chase is on, and it will take C.W. Sughrue and his ragtag, unruly gang of veterans all the way to El Paso, by way of Aspen, Montana.
The quote on the first page, a reference to Phillip Marlowe, doesn’t seem so gratuitous all of a sudden. Indeed, James Crumley seems to me to be almost single-handedly responsible for bringing the spirit and the literary style of Chandler into the seventies post flower-power, cynical, anti-establishment era. Even the meandering, bizarre and extremely violent plot that centers more on atmosphere, booze, drugs, dangerous dames and hard fists than on actual detective logic seems lifted wholesale from one of Phillip Marlowe’s cases.
“Mr. Soo-goo?” she ventured.
“’Shoog’ as in sugar, honey,” I said, slipping my card out of her slick fingers and resisting a sudden urge to chuckle her behind the gills, “and ‘rue’ as in rue the goddamned day.”
This in not my first experience of Crumley’s world, so I was somewhat prepared for the heavy drinking and for the cynical commentary on current affairs strangely interrupted by poetic, literary inserts. Probably no other book by Crumley will have the same impact as “The Last Good Kiss” for me, but this Mexican escapade comes really close to that sense of discovery.
Bars can be nice places, comfortable, homes away from the loneliness and confusion of home, but nobody, not even the most confirmed degenerate drunk, can spend eighty and ninety hours a week in one [...] As far as I was concerned, the sun was something that happened in another country. I didn’t care if it came out. Then it did just to prove me wrong.
I get the feeling Sughrue will run across the other boozy detective in Crumley’s literary universe [Milo Milodragovitch] at some point in the future, but for now I like this Montana setting a little better – not so black tinted, more humour, crazier plot.
When we stopped laughing, Frank asked me what I was working on. I guess I told him a good version of the story, because as soon as we were able, we were on our way to Aspen, a dying cop, an alcoholic mailman, and a licensed and bonded private dick working for a world-famous drug lawyer. I knew if I told him about Norman, Frank would call me a hippie again.
I think it would be useless to explain these references here, or to give the background on secondary characters, at least not without drinking myself silly before sitting down to write the review.
Sughrue and his gang are rarely sober from the start of the chase until the final pages, and this is without counting the hard drugs they also consume on the trail of the mysterious and well connected woman that leads them to El Paso.
“As far as I can tell, the police forces of three states, the FBI, the Secret Service, and probably the f_cking CIA are looking for this woman, who you think might be your mother, and they can’t find her, so what makes you think I can?”
So ... the novel is like a Wild Bunch script, subversive and extremely violent. Why then do I count myself among the rabid fans of the author who look on these texts as literary masterpieces?
Probably for the gems that pop up when you least expect and hit you like a punch to the gut, for the rare moments of beauty and for the hard-earned wisdom of the guy who has hit rock-bottom and managed to crawl back into an appreciation of life and sunlight and friendship.
In the clear, hot sunshine of autumn, the promise of winter waits just inside the shade of the pines, a vow always honored. Whatever winter brings – aching bones, starving elk, frozen children – we’ve got this moment of blue clarity. Western Montana at its best.
I will most probably forget the plot of this adventure, and even what a Mexican tree duck is [a lazy, tree-dwelling Texas bird that happens to have sharp teeth, and also a porcelain statuette central to the investigation]. I will also probably forget the names of the secondary characters, with the exception of the hilarious fat twins who took their surname from a Samuel Delany novel [Dhalgren].
But I will cherish these rare flashes of poetry and insight in a hard-boiled universe.
Survival came to mind first. Laughter, too, an ability to laugh through whatever vicissitudes life rolled my way, and certainly a willingness to be amazed.
Perhaps only people who followed the letter of the law, instead of the spirit, would think of us as bad guys. Recently, it came to me that the letter of the law was a dollar sign, and the spirit a ghost of her former self.
Life is a joke. You just have to hope it’s funny. Instead of bad.
I laughed, I cried, I looked up Hank Snow on the internet because this is what Sughrue listen to as he drinks.
I’ll raise my own whisky dram to James Crumley and drink to his talent, hoping I will come back to his novels down the road... to El Paso.
“Nobody called, nobody came in, nothing happened.
Nobody cared if I died or went to El Paso.”
[Raymond Chandler – The High Window]
June 25, 2015
The Chandler meets Hunter S Thompson thing is a pretty well established comparison for people discovering the work of James Crumley but having thus far refused to read Thompson I would like to mention that this second outing for See Dubya Shoog-rue plays quite a lot like a more literary, less James Bond-esque, more fucked up post-Vietnam, less Travis McGee version of Don Hamilton's Matt Helm series. Sughrue derails a train and almost single handedly storms a drug compound before the case has even started and Crumley doesn't let up on the adrenaline throughout, providing the literary equivalent of the large quantities of illicit substances Sughrue and his band of friends/accomplices/hangers on/enemies/clients/lawyers partake in right up until the final paragraph.
People get shot, people get tortured, people have a lot of martinis, and a lot of tequila, there's a fair amount of sex and almost as many red herrings, there's beautiful similies and honest reflections on the war in Vietnam from an author who was also a veteran, Crumley is at once vulgar and pulpy whilst surreptitiously squeezing in the joyful games with words that you would usually associate with winners of important prizes, and there's a tank.
It's a hell of a ride but it's not as awesomely bleak as The Last Good Kiss.
People get shot, people get tortured, people have a lot of martinis, and a lot of tequila, there's a fair amount of sex and almost as many red herrings, there's beautiful similies and honest reflections on the war in Vietnam from an author who was also a veteran, Crumley is at once vulgar and pulpy whilst surreptitiously squeezing in the joyful games with words that you would usually associate with winners of important prizes, and there's a tank.
It's a hell of a ride but it's not as awesomely bleak as The Last Good Kiss.
December 20, 2020
Most of the wall space was occupied by artifacts from the Vietnam War. Weapons and official photos, citations and medals, the phony debris of a foolish cause. This fucker had believed. So I added, "and other people's money to fuck around with."
The Mexican Tree Duck (1993), the second novel in Crumley's C.W. Sughrue series, is more violent, depraved and profane; more haunted by Vietnam and the prospect of old age; and overall a little wilder and a little less coherent, than 1978's The Last Good Kiss.
Naturally, there are also a lot of commonalities between the two books. Crumley still has his great ear for dialogue, his wicked sense of humor, and an obvious love for the landscapes of the mountain west, where most of the action again takes place. Sughrue still hooks up with every woman he meets, as the genre requires, and there's even more of an affection, in this installment, for the granular details of weaponry and tactics of armed combat that wouldn't be out of place in a Garth Ennis comic (occasionally it feels less like a mystery and more like a "let's get our aging war buddies together for one last firefight, and lay siege to a rich bad guy's heavily-fortified compound" kind of story). And just as in The Last Good Kiss, Sughrue begins this adventure by chasing from state to state one of the lost souls that populate Crumley's post-Vietnam America:
The pharmacist read the wrong books, maybe, or watched the wrong television shows, whatever, he became convinced that the revolution had taken place without him. So he faked a robbery, fled with the money and the drugs...fled toward the peace and freedom of the mountain west, Montana, the word like a benison on his trembling lips. By the time I caught up with him, though, he had had enough of his dream.I must admit that, after finishing part four, I put this book down for about twenty days (not exactly unusual for me); when I picked it up to finish parts five and six, I found myself completely disoriented, at one point unable to discern whether the characters in a certain scene were riding in a chartered helicopter or a van- never mind where they were going, or for what purpose. You would think that even a reader who hadn't read the first four parts would be able to figure this out from context, and yet for a good thirty pages or so I genuinely had no idea what the hell was going on. Whether that's my fault or Crumley's, I'm really not sure.
The former possibility taken into account, I still found the concluding parts here a little convoluted. Something tragic happens, in fact it's the oldest trick in the book, but, unlike in The Last Good Kiss, I did not believe that the tragic event was inevitable. It felt forced, and like Crumley was trying to recreate the emotional impact of the first novel.
Overall, though, this is good fun. But read The Last Good Kiss first.
December 13, 2021
Not as good as some of Crumley's other novels but still better than average.
C.W. "Sonny" Sughrue hasn't been active in the P.I. business for awhile, he has been quietly managing a small bar in his adopted hometown of Meriwether, Montana. That changes after he "executes" a jukebox (in a most spectacular fashion) and has to seek refuge with Solomon Rainbolt - a friend, fellow Vietnam veteran and (ugh) lawyer. One thing leads to another and soon he's off on a case that takes him cross country in the company of some of his former war buddies ("we were on our way to Aspen, a dying cop, an alcoholic mailman, and a licensed and bonded private dick working for a world-famous drug lawyer") in search of a rich man's missing wife and a witness who Sughrue has taken a shine to... in typical Crumley fashion, things are rarely as they seem, almost everyone is suspect, and the good guys and the bad guys are separated by a line as thin as the tripwire on a hidden booby trap.
One of the things I enjoy about James Crumley's detective books is that the characters actually age from book to book, they aren't suspended in time waiting to be called out for the next big case, they evolve (in Sughrue's case devolve might be a better term), always in a slightly different place than where the last book left them. This novel brings C.W. Sughrue's Vietnam past front and center, like a dark cloud of smoke, pain, lost innocence and overdue retribution that drifts constantly overhead; slowly descending downward as the story unfolds.
At times The Mexican Tree Duck reads more like Action/Adventure than Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction, even more so than Crumley's previous efforts, so it won't be to everyone's taste. It's not funny, in the laugh-out-loud, bust a gut sense of the word, but it DOES contain some great moments of dark humor, as well as dry witty observations on various aspects of society and the human condition. If you're not already familiar with James Crumley's work this probably isn't the one to start with... not that it's not good - it is - it's just that, though definitely written in his hard-edged, take-few-prisoners style, it's not really indicative of his previous work.
This book is not recommended for sensitive, or squeamish readers. It contains sex, strong language, rampant drug use and violent imagery - often all in the same paragraph.
C.W. "Sonny" Sughrue hasn't been active in the P.I. business for awhile, he has been quietly managing a small bar in his adopted hometown of Meriwether, Montana. That changes after he "executes" a jukebox (in a most spectacular fashion) and has to seek refuge with Solomon Rainbolt - a friend, fellow Vietnam veteran and (ugh) lawyer. One thing leads to another and soon he's off on a case that takes him cross country in the company of some of his former war buddies ("we were on our way to Aspen, a dying cop, an alcoholic mailman, and a licensed and bonded private dick working for a world-famous drug lawyer") in search of a rich man's missing wife and a witness who Sughrue has taken a shine to... in typical Crumley fashion, things are rarely as they seem, almost everyone is suspect, and the good guys and the bad guys are separated by a line as thin as the tripwire on a hidden booby trap.
One of the things I enjoy about James Crumley's detective books is that the characters actually age from book to book, they aren't suspended in time waiting to be called out for the next big case, they evolve (in Sughrue's case devolve might be a better term), always in a slightly different place than where the last book left them. This novel brings C.W. Sughrue's Vietnam past front and center, like a dark cloud of smoke, pain, lost innocence and overdue retribution that drifts constantly overhead; slowly descending downward as the story unfolds.
At times The Mexican Tree Duck reads more like Action/Adventure than Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction, even more so than Crumley's previous efforts, so it won't be to everyone's taste. It's not funny, in the laugh-out-loud, bust a gut sense of the word, but it DOES contain some great moments of dark humor, as well as dry witty observations on various aspects of society and the human condition. If you're not already familiar with James Crumley's work this probably isn't the one to start with... not that it's not good - it is - it's just that, though definitely written in his hard-edged, take-few-prisoners style, it's not really indicative of his previous work.
This book is not recommended for sensitive, or squeamish readers. It contains sex, strong language, rampant drug use and violent imagery - often all in the same paragraph.
May 14, 2019
The Last Good Kiss made me wonder how is Crumley not better known, the answer to that is The Mexican Tree Duck. The biggest problem is Crumley appears as drunk as his protagonist Sughrue. The narrative's tone reminiscent of a drunk's ramblings, varies wildly from comic caper to existential bleakness. His writing retains the occasional bursts of brilliance. But the plot is not as much the neglected runt of the litter, as it is the abused bastard that ruined the family name.
The story starts of with Sughrue hunting for a stolen goldfish, the resolution is as absurd, in a good way, as his quarry. It is the setup for the main plot, the search for the long lost mother of one of the parties involved in the goldfish abduction! The missing person case gets tied with another abduction, a gang war between Mexican smugglers, questionable dealings of the top army brass during Vietnam, random depravity, festering aspirations of a crooked politician and a surprise twist at the end as resolution. It is not so much complex and sprawling as it is meandering and uncertain.
The structure resembles those TV shows that had a good arc for one season, then gets renewed for a few more with the writers having no idea what to do with it. By the time the series is ending, someone remembers - Oops! Forgot random dangling plot thread from season two, let's wrap it up neatly. So everything gets answered but none of it is satisfactory. Plus every character Sughrue meets is too quirky to be real. It is also heavy on the gunfights, a narrative as gritty as this one could have done with less all out small scale wars.
The plot leaves a bit to be desired but the writing remains commendable most of the way. Sample - A better man, which I plan to become someday, a single line is often enough for Crumley to capture and echo what many people feel when they are at their most lonesome. The language is often very crude, but it just highlights those lines that made me do a double take.
Sughrue is the other highlight. He seems like the guy who has been thrown so many curveballs by life that he stops being perturbed with who is at the receiving end of the giant 'Fuck You' that becomes his default response to one and sundry. Imagine the nosy neighbor who regularly corners you to ask how you have been when all she wants is fodder for gossip or to unload her latest sob story. Or the dog that barks all night to keep you awake. To really appreciate Sughrue, you have to be the one who tells the neighbor to shut up, politeness be damned or wishes the mutt runs into the path of an incoming sixteen wheeler. Sughrue won't cater to all tastes but if you like your hard boiled protagonist cynical and broken, Sughrue is pretty damn good.
For some the writing will be worth the time spent on The Mexican Tree Duck but look elsewhere if excessive crudity by genre standards or shabby plotting bothers you. I would have recommended the previous book in the series without a second thought but this one won't really appeal to anyone but hard boiled fans. Rating - 3/5
The story starts of with Sughrue hunting for a stolen goldfish, the resolution is as absurd, in a good way, as his quarry. It is the setup for the main plot, the search for the long lost mother of one of the parties involved in the goldfish abduction! The missing person case gets tied with another abduction, a gang war between Mexican smugglers, questionable dealings of the top army brass during Vietnam, random depravity, festering aspirations of a crooked politician and a surprise twist at the end as resolution. It is not so much complex and sprawling as it is meandering and uncertain.
The structure resembles those TV shows that had a good arc for one season, then gets renewed for a few more with the writers having no idea what to do with it. By the time the series is ending, someone remembers - Oops! Forgot random dangling plot thread from season two, let's wrap it up neatly. So everything gets answered but none of it is satisfactory. Plus every character Sughrue meets is too quirky to be real. It is also heavy on the gunfights, a narrative as gritty as this one could have done with less all out small scale wars.
The plot leaves a bit to be desired but the writing remains commendable most of the way. Sample - A better man, which I plan to become someday, a single line is often enough for Crumley to capture and echo what many people feel when they are at their most lonesome. The language is often very crude, but it just highlights those lines that made me do a double take.
Sughrue is the other highlight. He seems like the guy who has been thrown so many curveballs by life that he stops being perturbed with who is at the receiving end of the giant 'Fuck You' that becomes his default response to one and sundry. Imagine the nosy neighbor who regularly corners you to ask how you have been when all she wants is fodder for gossip or to unload her latest sob story. Or the dog that barks all night to keep you awake. To really appreciate Sughrue, you have to be the one who tells the neighbor to shut up, politeness be damned or wishes the mutt runs into the path of an incoming sixteen wheeler. Sughrue won't cater to all tastes but if you like your hard boiled protagonist cynical and broken, Sughrue is pretty damn good.
For some the writing will be worth the time spent on The Mexican Tree Duck but look elsewhere if excessive crudity by genre standards or shabby plotting bothers you. I would have recommended the previous book in the series without a second thought but this one won't really appeal to anyone but hard boiled fans. Rating - 3/5
January 5, 2016
This book is a real riot. I'm exceptionally pleased that I gave Crumley another shot because this is miles better than The Long Kiss Goodbye. I love Sughrue, even though I think it's kind of silly that almost every woman in the book has sex with him, and his supporting cast is exquisite. My personal favorites include Jimmy & Wynona (poor Wynona). This is a wonderfully written cocaine-fueled, Vietnam-tinged romp involving ducks both Mexican tree & highly orgasmic domestic - although please riddle me this: That was almost the pinprick that deflated my four-star balloon, but I'm willing to look beyond that implausibility since after all it was so close to the end of the book & just enjoy & revel in what's here.
August 20, 2017
A PI novel with plenty of drugs, sex, and heavy weaponry. Reads like Raymond Chandler crossed with Hunter S. Thompson (and now I see I'm not the first person to make that comparison). Like most Crumley novels, the plot wanders a bit, but the prose and the attitude keep you riveted. Highly recommended.
January 4, 2024
C.W. Sughrue is at it again but this time there is so much ridiculous nonsense going on it's hard to keep track of it all. He's changed in the years since we've seen him last, no longer the down at his heels private eye with a smart mouth, well actually that is still the same but now add in equal measures James Bond and Charles Bronson. There's more drugs, debauchery, violence, sex, twists, turns, PTSD, and betrayals jammed into this book than a lot of 80's movies combined. And C.W. is right there at the center of it, drinking, sniffing and sexing his way through it all.
It's not high art it's high octane and embraces it. I can picture Crumley laughing while he typed it.
It's not high art it's high octane and embraces it. I can picture Crumley laughing while he typed it.
December 7, 2018
James Crumley is basically the Raymond Chandler of the American west. I mean that as both a compliment and a dig.
I like Chandler and appreciate his status as the OG of the contemporary American mystery novel but I wouldn’t say I’m one of his acolytes. His plots were often heavily convoluted and though I don’t like applying 2018 sensibilities to works published sixty-plus years before, the vast majority of his female characters and how they are treated by Marlowe is nothing shy of misogynistic. Nevertheless, the man had a gift for both dialogue and scenery. He created a Los Angeles I felt like I could walk through and had crisp, biting dialogue.
Crumley has these strengths and weaknesses as well. If Philip Marlowe was a Vietnam Vet from Montana and did a lot of cocaine, he would be CW Sughrue. There is even the sympathetic tendencies towards the lower middle class and the plight of the poor that Chandler expresses. Crumley is the closest thing to Chandler, for better or for worse.
In this one, it’s more for worse. The plot here is almost impossible to follow and while I enjoyed how it shook out in Dancing Bear, it just doesn’t make enough sense to justify the many emotional beats Crumley is trying to hit. This is supposed to be a missing persons story only it becomes a bigger tale about what drugs did to folks in Nam and what they’re doing here and how the government maybe is or isn’t involved. There’s just too many balls to juggle and, like Chandler, plotting has never been Crumley’s strong suit.
Also, I have a hard time thinking these beautiful women would fall head-over-heels for a washed junkie alcoholic but that’s just me.
Nevertheless, there are a lot of fun moments when the dialogue hums, when the locations are well-described, when the book is marching towards anything other than a shootout. Crumley’s characters often function best when they’re talking as if they’re seated on a barstool, killing time. There’s enough of that to not make this book a total disaster.
Also, Crumley is trying to transfer 70s sensibilities to a 90s atmosphere…and I don’t think he succeeds but he also doesn’t totally fail. He’s not exactly a fish-out-of-water; he grasps the reality of the changing times even if he’s not attuned to how they have changed.
Crumley is the Chandler of the Vietnam age. Use that on a book blurb if you want. I would tack on “for better and worse” at the end of it.
I like Chandler and appreciate his status as the OG of the contemporary American mystery novel but I wouldn’t say I’m one of his acolytes. His plots were often heavily convoluted and though I don’t like applying 2018 sensibilities to works published sixty-plus years before, the vast majority of his female characters and how they are treated by Marlowe is nothing shy of misogynistic. Nevertheless, the man had a gift for both dialogue and scenery. He created a Los Angeles I felt like I could walk through and had crisp, biting dialogue.
Crumley has these strengths and weaknesses as well. If Philip Marlowe was a Vietnam Vet from Montana and did a lot of cocaine, he would be CW Sughrue. There is even the sympathetic tendencies towards the lower middle class and the plight of the poor that Chandler expresses. Crumley is the closest thing to Chandler, for better or for worse.
In this one, it’s more for worse. The plot here is almost impossible to follow and while I enjoyed how it shook out in Dancing Bear, it just doesn’t make enough sense to justify the many emotional beats Crumley is trying to hit. This is supposed to be a missing persons story only it becomes a bigger tale about what drugs did to folks in Nam and what they’re doing here and how the government maybe is or isn’t involved. There’s just too many balls to juggle and, like Chandler, plotting has never been Crumley’s strong suit.
Also, I have a hard time thinking these beautiful women would fall head-over-heels for a washed junkie alcoholic but that’s just me.
Nevertheless, there are a lot of fun moments when the dialogue hums, when the locations are well-described, when the book is marching towards anything other than a shootout. Crumley’s characters often function best when they’re talking as if they’re seated on a barstool, killing time. There’s enough of that to not make this book a total disaster.
Also, Crumley is trying to transfer 70s sensibilities to a 90s atmosphere…and I don’t think he succeeds but he also doesn’t totally fail. He’s not exactly a fish-out-of-water; he grasps the reality of the changing times even if he’s not attuned to how they have changed.
Crumley is the Chandler of the Vietnam age. Use that on a book blurb if you want. I would tack on “for better and worse” at the end of it.
Want to read
February 13, 2019Synopsis: C.W. Sughrue has been living in a morgue, but now he's off to find a missing woman. It's an odyssey of liquor, sex and gunplay.
May 23, 2013
Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/no-se-cansa...
Cada uno de estos libros merecería una entrada propia. Normalmente suelo unirlos en posts conjuntos, porque si no, el blog estaría lleno de entradas de la excelente colección de novela negra/policíaca del sello de RBA Serie Negra. En esta ocasión, y aprovechando el tirón de este monográfico de literatura de género, os pongo a continuación una nueva batería con tres clásicos que ordenaré de más moderno a más antiguo.
El primero del que voy a hablar se trata de “El pato mexicano” de James Crumley (1939-2008); publicada en 1993, se trata de la segunda novela protagonizada por el peculiar veterano de guerra metido a investigador C. W. Sughrue, tuvieron que pasar quince años para que viera la luz tras la primera, la maravillosa e inconmensurable “El último buen beso” (1978); anecdóticamente ganó el el Dashiell Hammet Award por ella.
Y digo anecdótico porque, desde luego, no es tan buena como la primera novela, pero supongo que fue la confirmación del buen hacer del gran escritor norteamericano. Este libro tiene dos partes claramente diferenciadas: en la primera, surrealista por momentos, caótica, absurda, tan enloquecedora… y, sin embargo, le sirve para presentar los personajes que centrarán la segunda parte , un caso de búsqueda de una persona desparecida. Una buena muestra del genio incombustible de su prosa es esta descripción de Norman el Anormal Hazelbrook, que, a la postre encargará la búsqueda de Sarita Cisneros, su hipotética madre:
“Aparte de dar la impresión de estar aún más loco de lo que en realidad estaba, Norman parecía el único superviviente de un desastre genético, un hombre hecho de pedazos sueltos, y todos de personas sin la menor relación entre ellas. Sus lacios y grasientos cabellos enmarcaban, negros y espesos, una larga cara pálida de ojos gris claro y un fino bigote, casi oriental. Sus largos brazos flacos terminaban en manos pequeñas; sus piernas cortas pugnaban por sostener el torso de un hombretón sobre pies tan diminutos que podrían enamorar a un príncipe chino. Y, además, por su puesto, estaba su mirada, siempre fija, con expresión de gran interés en algún punto por encima de tu hombro, en una demencial cuarta dimensión. Y la peste, una mezcla de orina rancia, dientes podridos, marihuana y probablemente lluvia ácida y micosis inguinal, que lo seguía a todas partes como un mal karma.”
Con cada palabra se puede paladear, sentir asco, oler la putrefacción, más allá del sentido de la vista; es una de las cualidades del estilo, muy personal, de Crumley; la segunda parte, más tradicional, es un relato hardboiled, un tour de force ciertamente caótico pero con más sentido del que parece inicialmente; hay muchas drogas, alcohol, gánsters, tráfico de armas y un personaje que lo llena todo, nuestro veterano de guerra capaz del momento más tierno:
“Su hermano Frank estaba intentando quitarse la vida; mi hermano Frank se estaba muriendo sin motivo, y yo no podía impedir ninguna de las dos cosas. Pero mi mano recordaba el tacto de la cabeza del pequeño Lester, el latido de su vida, el sonido de su risa mientras se me orinaba en la cara.”
Como reconocer claramente que bien puede provenir del infierno, pero que nadie va a poder con él:
“-Hijo de puta –escupió, sujetándose la mano contra el pecho como un animal herido-. Acabas de comprarte un billete de ida al infierno.
-Recuerda una cosa, guerrero de fin de semana, oficiaducho de mierda –susurré-. Yo he estado allí y he vuelto. Puede que me cagase en los pantalones, pero no salí corriendo. Estuve en la guerra, cabronazo, y tú en un plató de televisión.”
Una muy buena novela de nuevo. Si hay suerte veremos más novelas de Crumley por aquí, por lo menos las dos que nos quedan de C. W. Sughrue.
Textos de la traducción de Antonio Iriarte para la edición de RBA serie negra.
“El manuscrito Godwulf”, escrito en 1973 por Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) es el primer libro de la extensa serie (¡Son cuarenta entregas!!!) del detective Jack Spenser.
“Me gusta cocinar, y beber mientras cocino. Las vieiras Saint Jacques o gratinadas es un plato complicado, con crema de leche, vino, zumo de limón y chalotas, y cuando estuvo listo me sentí muy bien. Puse unos panecillos en el horno, también para mí solo, y me comí las vieiras y los panecillos recién horneados con una botella de Pouilly Fuissé, sentado en el mostrador. Después me fui a dormir. Y dormí profundamente, muchas horas.”
Spenser, detective de Boston, es capaz de cocinar en una escena, tallar madera en la siguiente y repartir estopa al primer matón que se le cruce por delante o conquistar a una exuberante señorita a continuación:
“-Hola me llamo Spenser, ¿te acuerdas de mí?
Ella se rio, una risa estupenda, una risa de clase alta.
-El de los hombros anchos, y los ojos bonitos, sí, claro que me acuerdo. –Y se echó a reír otra vez. Una risa buena, llena de promesas, una risa cojonuda, si se piensa bien.”
Es un detective heredero del estilo de los grandes Marlowe o Spade, con unas pizcas de Hammer; tiene un estilo tan particular que puede llegar a subyugar sin muchas dificultades.
En esta que fue la primera novela, Parker planteó como pretexto el robo de un manuscrito que, sin embargo, le sirve como tapadera para una trama policíaca de toda la vida donde los mafiosos, los bajos fondos y las drogas están más que presentes.
“Al romper la puerta, había hecho un ruido infernal, y el disparo previo debió de sonar muy fuerte. Pero, por lo visto, aquel barrio no era de esos… No era de esos en los que vas a ver qué ocurre cuando oyes disparos y revientan puertas. Era más bien de esos en los que te tapas con la manta y entierras la cabeza y piensas “Que se jodan. Mejor ellos que yo.”
Una espléndida muestra de novela policíaca que no debe quedarse perdida por la gran calidad que puede tener toda la serie.
Textos de la traducción de Ana Herrera para la edición de RBA Serie Negra.
Y para acabar un clasicazo en toda regla, “Rendez-vous en negro” (1948) de Cornell Woolrich (1903-1968); a pesar de repetir la estructura y premisa de su gran novela “La novia vestía de negro” (1940), Woolrich supo reinventar cada episodio para que esta repetición no fuera tal.
En el primer y extraño capítulo se cumple a la perfección el ideal de la presentación: por el hermetismo que destila por las pinceladas en la que se produce una mezcla de lo enigmático-onírico-lírico…
“Algo con lunes rojas, un carro del infierno, aparcaba por allí, dando marcha atrás para situarse adecuadamente. E introducían algo en su interior. Algo que no le era útil a nadie, algo que nadie amaba, algo para tirar. Cerraron de golpe las portezuelas traseras del carro del infierno. El oscilante resplandor rojizo lo cubrió todo, iluminando durante un minuto a la multitud, tiñéndola de su refulgente carmesí, como si fuese un cohete mal lanzado el cuatro de julio que cae sobre el público en lugar de elevarse; y después se alejó con un doloroso lamento.”
“Los seres humanos son raros. Pueden ser tan crueles o tan cariñosos… pueden ser tan insensibles o tan tiernos…”
Otro de esos elementos diferenciador es el curioso investigador que nos desvelará poco a poco el caso, resulta subversivo el que le tergiverse el nombre, alterando el orden de su nombre y su apellido, ese toque de atención nos trae a colación lo especial que puede llegar a ser:
“El nombre de pila de Cameron era MacLain, por efecto de algún ancestral y extraño cambio en el orden lógico. En cualquier caso, a nadie excepto a él mismo le importaba lo más mínimo. Era demasiado delgado y su rostro tenía un aspecto crónicamente demacrado, probablemente debido a eso. Tenía los pómulos prominentes y las mejillas hundidas. Su actitud era una mezcla de indecisión seguida de ráfagas de gestos precipitados, seguidos de más indecisión, como si ya estuviese lamentando la determinación que acababa de tomar. Siempre seguía cualquier protocolo habitual, como si estuviese aplicándolo por primera vez. Incluso cuando eran antiguos y debería estar más que habituado a ellos.”
El caso, tan estrambótico como el propio, se irá resolviendo en sentido contrario a lo habitual en novelas del estilo:
“-Saben lo que lo mueve y lo que no. Saben que el dinero no puede influenciarlo. Saben que es un maníaco. Saben la fecha en la que atacará y que el plazo del posible ataque es de solo veinticuatro horas. Pero no saben quién es. Un gran trabajo policial. ¿Cómo lo han desarrollado?, ¿al revés?
-A veces hay que hacerlo así. A veces las cosas suceden de ese modo. No muy a menudo, gracias a Dios, pero esta vez ha sido así.”
Cada capítulo se cargará de tensión ya que, aun sabiendo lo que va a ocurrir, no se sabe cómo lo va a realizar, todo para desembocar en el inusitado final, teñido con un perverso romanticismo. Es un particular Liebestod en toda regla.
Textos de la traducción de Mauricio Bach para RBA Serie negra.
Cada uno de estos libros merecería una entrada propia. Normalmente suelo unirlos en posts conjuntos, porque si no, el blog estaría lleno de entradas de la excelente colección de novela negra/policíaca del sello de RBA Serie Negra. En esta ocasión, y aprovechando el tirón de este monográfico de literatura de género, os pongo a continuación una nueva batería con tres clásicos que ordenaré de más moderno a más antiguo.
El primero del que voy a hablar se trata de “El pato mexicano” de James Crumley (1939-2008); publicada en 1993, se trata de la segunda novela protagonizada por el peculiar veterano de guerra metido a investigador C. W. Sughrue, tuvieron que pasar quince años para que viera la luz tras la primera, la maravillosa e inconmensurable “El último buen beso” (1978); anecdóticamente ganó el el Dashiell Hammet Award por ella.
Y digo anecdótico porque, desde luego, no es tan buena como la primera novela, pero supongo que fue la confirmación del buen hacer del gran escritor norteamericano. Este libro tiene dos partes claramente diferenciadas: en la primera, surrealista por momentos, caótica, absurda, tan enloquecedora… y, sin embargo, le sirve para presentar los personajes que centrarán la segunda parte , un caso de búsqueda de una persona desparecida. Una buena muestra del genio incombustible de su prosa es esta descripción de Norman el Anormal Hazelbrook, que, a la postre encargará la búsqueda de Sarita Cisneros, su hipotética madre:
“Aparte de dar la impresión de estar aún más loco de lo que en realidad estaba, Norman parecía el único superviviente de un desastre genético, un hombre hecho de pedazos sueltos, y todos de personas sin la menor relación entre ellas. Sus lacios y grasientos cabellos enmarcaban, negros y espesos, una larga cara pálida de ojos gris claro y un fino bigote, casi oriental. Sus largos brazos flacos terminaban en manos pequeñas; sus piernas cortas pugnaban por sostener el torso de un hombretón sobre pies tan diminutos que podrían enamorar a un príncipe chino. Y, además, por su puesto, estaba su mirada, siempre fija, con expresión de gran interés en algún punto por encima de tu hombro, en una demencial cuarta dimensión. Y la peste, una mezcla de orina rancia, dientes podridos, marihuana y probablemente lluvia ácida y micosis inguinal, que lo seguía a todas partes como un mal karma.”
Con cada palabra se puede paladear, sentir asco, oler la putrefacción, más allá del sentido de la vista; es una de las cualidades del estilo, muy personal, de Crumley; la segunda parte, más tradicional, es un relato hardboiled, un tour de force ciertamente caótico pero con más sentido del que parece inicialmente; hay muchas drogas, alcohol, gánsters, tráfico de armas y un personaje que lo llena todo, nuestro veterano de guerra capaz del momento más tierno:
“Su hermano Frank estaba intentando quitarse la vida; mi hermano Frank se estaba muriendo sin motivo, y yo no podía impedir ninguna de las dos cosas. Pero mi mano recordaba el tacto de la cabeza del pequeño Lester, el latido de su vida, el sonido de su risa mientras se me orinaba en la cara.”
Como reconocer claramente que bien puede provenir del infierno, pero que nadie va a poder con él:
“-Hijo de puta –escupió, sujetándose la mano contra el pecho como un animal herido-. Acabas de comprarte un billete de ida al infierno.
-Recuerda una cosa, guerrero de fin de semana, oficiaducho de mierda –susurré-. Yo he estado allí y he vuelto. Puede que me cagase en los pantalones, pero no salí corriendo. Estuve en la guerra, cabronazo, y tú en un plató de televisión.”
Una muy buena novela de nuevo. Si hay suerte veremos más novelas de Crumley por aquí, por lo menos las dos que nos quedan de C. W. Sughrue.
Textos de la traducción de Antonio Iriarte para la edición de RBA serie negra.
“El manuscrito Godwulf”, escrito en 1973 por Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) es el primer libro de la extensa serie (¡Son cuarenta entregas!!!) del detective Jack Spenser.
“Me gusta cocinar, y beber mientras cocino. Las vieiras Saint Jacques o gratinadas es un plato complicado, con crema de leche, vino, zumo de limón y chalotas, y cuando estuvo listo me sentí muy bien. Puse unos panecillos en el horno, también para mí solo, y me comí las vieiras y los panecillos recién horneados con una botella de Pouilly Fuissé, sentado en el mostrador. Después me fui a dormir. Y dormí profundamente, muchas horas.”
Spenser, detective de Boston, es capaz de cocinar en una escena, tallar madera en la siguiente y repartir estopa al primer matón que se le cruce por delante o conquistar a una exuberante señorita a continuación:
“-Hola me llamo Spenser, ¿te acuerdas de mí?
Ella se rio, una risa estupenda, una risa de clase alta.
-El de los hombros anchos, y los ojos bonitos, sí, claro que me acuerdo. –Y se echó a reír otra vez. Una risa buena, llena de promesas, una risa cojonuda, si se piensa bien.”
Es un detective heredero del estilo de los grandes Marlowe o Spade, con unas pizcas de Hammer; tiene un estilo tan particular que puede llegar a subyugar sin muchas dificultades.
En esta que fue la primera novela, Parker planteó como pretexto el robo de un manuscrito que, sin embargo, le sirve como tapadera para una trama policíaca de toda la vida donde los mafiosos, los bajos fondos y las drogas están más que presentes.
“Al romper la puerta, había hecho un ruido infernal, y el disparo previo debió de sonar muy fuerte. Pero, por lo visto, aquel barrio no era de esos… No era de esos en los que vas a ver qué ocurre cuando oyes disparos y revientan puertas. Era más bien de esos en los que te tapas con la manta y entierras la cabeza y piensas “Que se jodan. Mejor ellos que yo.”
Una espléndida muestra de novela policíaca que no debe quedarse perdida por la gran calidad que puede tener toda la serie.
Textos de la traducción de Ana Herrera para la edición de RBA Serie Negra.
Y para acabar un clasicazo en toda regla, “Rendez-vous en negro” (1948) de Cornell Woolrich (1903-1968); a pesar de repetir la estructura y premisa de su gran novela “La novia vestía de negro” (1940), Woolrich supo reinventar cada episodio para que esta repetición no fuera tal.
En el primer y extraño capítulo se cumple a la perfección el ideal de la presentación: por el hermetismo que destila por las pinceladas en la que se produce una mezcla de lo enigmático-onírico-lírico…
“Algo con lunes rojas, un carro del infierno, aparcaba por allí, dando marcha atrás para situarse adecuadamente. E introducían algo en su interior. Algo que no le era útil a nadie, algo que nadie amaba, algo para tirar. Cerraron de golpe las portezuelas traseras del carro del infierno. El oscilante resplandor rojizo lo cubrió todo, iluminando durante un minuto a la multitud, tiñéndola de su refulgente carmesí, como si fuese un cohete mal lanzado el cuatro de julio que cae sobre el público en lugar de elevarse; y después se alejó con un doloroso lamento.”
“Los seres humanos son raros. Pueden ser tan crueles o tan cariñosos… pueden ser tan insensibles o tan tiernos…”
Otro de esos elementos diferenciador es el curioso investigador que nos desvelará poco a poco el caso, resulta subversivo el que le tergiverse el nombre, alterando el orden de su nombre y su apellido, ese toque de atención nos trae a colación lo especial que puede llegar a ser:
“El nombre de pila de Cameron era MacLain, por efecto de algún ancestral y extraño cambio en el orden lógico. En cualquier caso, a nadie excepto a él mismo le importaba lo más mínimo. Era demasiado delgado y su rostro tenía un aspecto crónicamente demacrado, probablemente debido a eso. Tenía los pómulos prominentes y las mejillas hundidas. Su actitud era una mezcla de indecisión seguida de ráfagas de gestos precipitados, seguidos de más indecisión, como si ya estuviese lamentando la determinación que acababa de tomar. Siempre seguía cualquier protocolo habitual, como si estuviese aplicándolo por primera vez. Incluso cuando eran antiguos y debería estar más que habituado a ellos.”
El caso, tan estrambótico como el propio, se irá resolviendo en sentido contrario a lo habitual en novelas del estilo:
“-Saben lo que lo mueve y lo que no. Saben que el dinero no puede influenciarlo. Saben que es un maníaco. Saben la fecha en la que atacará y que el plazo del posible ataque es de solo veinticuatro horas. Pero no saben quién es. Un gran trabajo policial. ¿Cómo lo han desarrollado?, ¿al revés?
-A veces hay que hacerlo así. A veces las cosas suceden de ese modo. No muy a menudo, gracias a Dios, pero esta vez ha sido así.”
Cada capítulo se cargará de tensión ya que, aun sabiendo lo que va a ocurrir, no se sabe cómo lo va a realizar, todo para desembocar en el inusitado final, teñido con un perverso romanticismo. Es un particular Liebestod en toda regla.
Textos de la traducción de Mauricio Bach para RBA Serie negra.
August 24, 2019
Ο Κράμλεϋ είναι από τους all time best νουάρ συγγραφείς και κάθε του βιβλίο είναι μια μικρή επίσκεψη στον παράδεισο της γραφής, μόνο που τα πάντα είναι βρώμικα στα όρια του trash. Αν σκεφτείς πως είχε δηλώσει Τροτσκιστής θα δεις και μια υποδόρια πολιτική μάτια στα βιβλία του, όμως και μόνο οι χαρακτήρες ή η ιστορία καθ'αυτή σε κρατάει, μαζί ασφαλώς με την τσαντλερική πρόζα που ακόμα και ο Τσάντλερ θα ζήλευε την σε σημεία τόλμη της. Δεν είναι εύκολος, όμως είναι από τους μεγάλους αδικημένους που είναι κρίμα να ξεχαστεί.
September 27, 2014
"Non fa più male. Avevo alzato il bicchiere alla luce autunnale - però non fa nemmeno meno male - La tequila andava giù liscia come la luce polverosa del pomeriggio. Quando avevo rimesso il bicchiere sul banco. "
"Certo — aveva detto Bob, riempiendo un altro bicchierino per tutti. Era andato giù come l’ultima speranza di una razza in estinzione."
Godetevi allora il citato pezzo di Hank Snow, il ranger che canta,
It don't hurt anymore
"I giovani vedono nella primavera la stagione del rinnovamento, ma quanti di noi hanno un paio di birre sotto la cintura e qualche miglio in più sul groppone sanno che è soltanto una falsa promessa di vegetazione destinata ad avvizzire, una frenetica, fiorita promessa destinata a non essere mai mantenuta.Invece, sotto il limpido cielo e il sole caldo dell’autunno, la promessa dell’inverno ci aspetta nell'ombra dei pini: un impegno che viene sempre onorato."
Avevo scoperto questo grande scrittore, James Crumley, ne L'ultimo vero bacio e confermo senza esitazioni le 4 stelle anche a questo romanzo che, pur non essendo un capolavoro come il precedente, è veramente molto bello.
"Leggere Crumley è un'esperienza fisica, quasi carnale. Nel senso che mentre leggi, senti gli odori, i sapori, il lordume, la passione, la violenza e i sentimenti, che escono in maniera esuberante dalle pagine, per arrivarti dritte tra i denti, nella testa e - senza sentimentalismi - nel cuore." Vero, assolutamente vero.
C.W.Sughrue è un solitario, duro ma generoso, senza etichette perchè un’etichetta comporta una strada; una strada, un desiderio e ovunque lui sia, amici miei, è privo di desideri.
Un amico che c'è sempre nel momento del bisogno ma... i suoi amici ? I suoi amici sono gente strana, sia che si conoscano da anni che siano appena stati raccolti dalla strada.
Essi popolano questo romanzo arricchendolo di umanità.
E allora ecco Norman, motociclista "anormale" che spara ai topini che gli girano per casa e ruba pesci pregiati a due fratelli ciccioni con l'insana passione delle armi da guerra, che chiama Sughrue per recuperare la sua presunta madre che si è sposata Don Pines; ecco, per l'appunto, i due ciccioni pacifici, figli di militari, che dietro alla placida e obesa apparenza, armano fino al collo Sughrue; e poi ex commilitoni codardi e postini pistoleri. Il tutto viaggiando tra scorribande per il Montana, il deserto americano e il Messico.
È semplice, uomo, conta come si vive, non come si muore e la guerra è un gioco per giovani, e solo un ricordo per gli anziani.
Ma in fondo la vita è un gioco. Bisogna solo sperare che sia divertente. Invece che sporco e qualche tratto di divertimento non manca nemmeno in questa sordida vicenda di droga e omicidi.
Se la classe non è acqua, in Crumley è certamente whisky. Di quello bello forte. Ma buono. Che rende dipendenti.
"Certo — aveva detto Bob, riempiendo un altro bicchierino per tutti. Era andato giù come l’ultima speranza di una razza in estinzione."
Godetevi allora il citato pezzo di Hank Snow, il ranger che canta,
It don't hurt anymore
"I giovani vedono nella primavera la stagione del rinnovamento, ma quanti di noi hanno un paio di birre sotto la cintura e qualche miglio in più sul groppone sanno che è soltanto una falsa promessa di vegetazione destinata ad avvizzire, una frenetica, fiorita promessa destinata a non essere mai mantenuta.Invece, sotto il limpido cielo e il sole caldo dell’autunno, la promessa dell’inverno ci aspetta nell'ombra dei pini: un impegno che viene sempre onorato."
Avevo scoperto questo grande scrittore, James Crumley, ne L'ultimo vero bacio e confermo senza esitazioni le 4 stelle anche a questo romanzo che, pur non essendo un capolavoro come il precedente, è veramente molto bello.
"Leggere Crumley è un'esperienza fisica, quasi carnale. Nel senso che mentre leggi, senti gli odori, i sapori, il lordume, la passione, la violenza e i sentimenti, che escono in maniera esuberante dalle pagine, per arrivarti dritte tra i denti, nella testa e - senza sentimentalismi - nel cuore." Vero, assolutamente vero.
C.W.Sughrue è un solitario, duro ma generoso, senza etichette perchè un’etichetta comporta una strada; una strada, un desiderio e ovunque lui sia, amici miei, è privo di desideri.
Un amico che c'è sempre nel momento del bisogno ma... i suoi amici ? I suoi amici sono gente strana, sia che si conoscano da anni che siano appena stati raccolti dalla strada.
Essi popolano questo romanzo arricchendolo di umanità.
E allora ecco Norman, motociclista "anormale" che spara ai topini che gli girano per casa e ruba pesci pregiati a due fratelli ciccioni con l'insana passione delle armi da guerra, che chiama Sughrue per recuperare la sua presunta madre che si è sposata Don Pines; ecco, per l'appunto, i due ciccioni pacifici, figli di militari, che dietro alla placida e obesa apparenza, armano fino al collo Sughrue; e poi ex commilitoni codardi e postini pistoleri. Il tutto viaggiando tra scorribande per il Montana, il deserto americano e il Messico.
È semplice, uomo, conta come si vive, non come si muore e la guerra è un gioco per giovani, e solo un ricordo per gli anziani.
Ma in fondo la vita è un gioco. Bisogna solo sperare che sia divertente. Invece che sporco e qualche tratto di divertimento non manca nemmeno in questa sordida vicenda di droga e omicidi.
Se la classe non è acqua, in Crumley è certamente whisky. Di quello bello forte. Ma buono. Che rende dipendenti.
May 15, 2020
This series is such a trip to read. Ever get a GOOD headache? That's what this book gave me. Goddamned feverdream drug-addled gunfight feelz.
April 24, 2024
"Send lawyers, guns and money." Warren Zevon's song sets the tone for this novel.
Set in the seventies, C.W. Sughrue has finally snapped. The jukebox owners at his bar have replaced the last Hank Snow record with some high-pitched pop singer. The jukebox meets its demise that night when the 3:15 freight runs through Meriweather, MT and the Wurlitzer.
C.W. finds himself out of a job and money and apartment when his lawyer friend sets him up with a bed in the embalming room of his funeral-home-come-office, and a simple job. The leader of the local biker gang has not paid for his tropical fish, and the store wants them repossessed. Of course that doesn't work out quite as expected. Instead, the leader hires him to track down his mother that gave him up for adoption in El Paso after some negotiations take place.
C.W. meets up with buddies from Vietnam and proceeds to track the missing mother down. As in the previous Crumley novels, there are lots of bad guys chasing lots of good guys with massive fire power and drugs and contraband and low-flying DC-3s over the border and car chases and a VW Campervan that has a non-standard V8 and can do about 135 in an emergency.
It is interesting to remember there was a time when payphones were the only way to communicate remotely and anyone with cash and a fake name could simply walk onto an airplane to anywhere. It was a simple delay of minutes to cross back and forth between El Paso and Juarez, by car or foot.
Nostalgia, sigh.
Set in the seventies, C.W. Sughrue has finally snapped. The jukebox owners at his bar have replaced the last Hank Snow record with some high-pitched pop singer. The jukebox meets its demise that night when the 3:15 freight runs through Meriweather, MT and the Wurlitzer.
C.W. finds himself out of a job and money and apartment when his lawyer friend sets him up with a bed in the embalming room of his funeral-home-come-office, and a simple job. The leader of the local biker gang has not paid for his tropical fish, and the store wants them repossessed. Of course that doesn't work out quite as expected. Instead, the leader hires him to track down his mother that gave him up for adoption in El Paso after some negotiations take place.
C.W. meets up with buddies from Vietnam and proceeds to track the missing mother down. As in the previous Crumley novels, there are lots of bad guys chasing lots of good guys with massive fire power and drugs and contraband and low-flying DC-3s over the border and car chases and a VW Campervan that has a non-standard V8 and can do about 135 in an emergency.
It is interesting to remember there was a time when payphones were the only way to communicate remotely and anyone with cash and a fake name could simply walk onto an airplane to anywhere. It was a simple delay of minutes to cross back and forth between El Paso and Juarez, by car or foot.
Nostalgia, sigh.
September 25, 2024
Excellent writing, but all over the place ; still really do not know what happened
November 11, 2024
Los personajes de Crumley son fascinantes y sus tramas divertidísimas
June 24, 2022
Un roman entraînant et dynamique, mais dans lequel je me suis un peu perdue. On y suit une bande de drogués rescapés de la guerre du Vietnam. L'écriture est acerbe, avec une pointe d'humour agréable, et fonctionne parfaitement avec l'ambiance de l'intrigue.
December 23, 2021
I wish I could sing the praises of this book, because Crumley could really write. The characters are, as with "The Last Good kiss," really well-crafted, and aside from C W Sughrue, in no way repetitions of those in the earlier book. That almost -- but not quite -- makes this difficult reading journey worth it.
My main frustration here is that the plot was so complicated as to border on impenetrable. I would be unable to describe to anyone else what happened in these pages. The picaresque journey through Montana, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas is good reading, but the events are really tangled. This seems like a mash-up of Chandler and Hunter Thompson, and the results are disappointing.
For those readers who are faint of heart, note that the violence here is explicit. One experiences what happens when bullets hit bodies. This is not to my taste, I'm afraid. The sex scenes are also pretty explicit -- and somewhat inexplicable. Sughrue is apparently some kind of chick magnet,
though I would think his style would be more repellant than that. Yeah, he's a decent guy inside, I guess, but the external C.W. is not a matinee idol.
Still, this is really literature rather than your standard P.I. story. To me, it's at best controversial, but I have to admit that Crumley is well worth reading, and I expect to try additional works by him.
My main frustration here is that the plot was so complicated as to border on impenetrable. I would be unable to describe to anyone else what happened in these pages. The picaresque journey through Montana, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas is good reading, but the events are really tangled. This seems like a mash-up of Chandler and Hunter Thompson, and the results are disappointing.
For those readers who are faint of heart, note that the violence here is explicit. One experiences what happens when bullets hit bodies. This is not to my taste, I'm afraid. The sex scenes are also pretty explicit -- and somewhat inexplicable. Sughrue is apparently some kind of chick magnet,
though I would think his style would be more repellant than that. Yeah, he's a decent guy inside, I guess, but the external C.W. is not a matinee idol.
Still, this is really literature rather than your standard P.I. story. To me, it's at best controversial, but I have to admit that Crumley is well worth reading, and I expect to try additional works by him.
July 30, 2016
Not just as good as "The Last Good Kiss" - the plot is all over the place, I got lost a few times; I am still not sure about Shugrue - although the supporting characters are a bit more likeable (Frank and Jimmy, Shugrue's fellow veterans; Norman and Mary, the biker couple who set everything moving; and, especially, the Dahlgren twins, tropical fish and arms dealers) - but still a very enjoyable read. Crumley is a recent discovery for me. I am not sure how I missed him but I'm liking catching up.
The book has several excellent scenes, especially at the start- the destruction of a jukebox due to the removal of Hank Snow records, an attempt to repossess fish from the bikers - but the conclusion is a bit messy, a Peckinpah-style face-off where I was a little unsure of who was doing what . The drug-taking is a bit too Gonzo for me as well, not that I have an issue with the drugs culture, I just find it hard to accept that the characters could operate on any sort of useful level, or even survive, given their intake.
But, again, the language, the rhythm of it and the sentence construction, is delicious and it reminds me so much of Chandler that I'm headed off to 1939 Los Angeles for a while. I'll be back, probably to meet Milo Milodragovitch, before too long.
The book has several excellent scenes, especially at the start- the destruction of a jukebox due to the removal of Hank Snow records, an attempt to repossess fish from the bikers - but the conclusion is a bit messy, a Peckinpah-style face-off where I was a little unsure of who was doing what . The drug-taking is a bit too Gonzo for me as well, not that I have an issue with the drugs culture, I just find it hard to accept that the characters could operate on any sort of useful level, or even survive, given their intake.
But, again, the language, the rhythm of it and the sentence construction, is delicious and it reminds me so much of Chandler that I'm headed off to 1939 Los Angeles for a while. I'll be back, probably to meet Milo Milodragovitch, before too long.
October 10, 2008
This may be the craziest novel I've ever read. The violence gets ridiculously implausible and the plot unwieldy, but along the way there are plenty of great moments, lines and characters thrown into the chaos. I think Crumley was trying to say something about America's drug culture and the aftermath of Vietnam here but I think he failed to say anything coherent. It may be that he intended an 'impressionist' novel, but it didn't really work for me.
As others have said before me, after reading "The Last Good Kiss," this novel is somewhat of a disapointment and definitely not the place to start with Crumley.
As others have said before me, after reading "The Last Good Kiss," this novel is somewhat of a disapointment and definitely not the place to start with Crumley.
January 2, 2023
I wanted to like this novel about an ex-private eye who takes a job looking for someone's mother. However, I feel like the woman would have been found early in the book if Sughrue did not spend so much time drinking and doing drugs. I gave up on this novel after about 50 pages. I don't know if I will read any other Crumley novels.
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