Publisher's Synopsis
Collected here for the first time with a new introduction by the author, James Crumley's three dazzling crime novels present raw slices of American life, cut from the beating heart of a nation, and demonstrate why he is regarded as the finest crime writer of his generation.
'After all this time since The Wrong Case, seven of eight or ten cross-country moves, years of being broke, two more children, two or more marriages and divorces, I still don't know why I write detective novels.
But if you've come with me this far, let us hope that Spring will return to the mountains, that all our kisses will be good and lasting, our cases right, and our dancing, barefoot and mad with laughter' James Crumley
'Undoubtedly the rightful heir of Chandler of Ross Macdonald. Compared to these novels, most other contemporary writers seem anaemic or artificial by comparison' Weekend Telegraph
'As Chandler said of Hammett, he can write scenes that seem never to have been written before. With the death of Ross Macdonald and on the strength of just three novels, Crumley has become the foremost living writer of private-eye fiction' Crime and Mystery Writers
'Carefully plotted suspense . . . like Dashiel Hammett's books, they take realism beyond the limits of their chosen genre, showing us a darker, more provoking vision' Times Literary Supplement
'A first-rate American writer . . . pyrotechnically entertaining, sexy, compassionate' Village Voice
'Top-notch . . . an imaginative narrative sense, chaotic and even manic, but violently dramatic . . . excitingly new' Los Angeles Times Book Review
'If you like your detective fiction tough and tenacious you will love James Crumley . . . no one does it better' Houston Chronicle
'Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald have been looking for a successor. Now they have him' Boston Phoenix
'Crumley's themes are as American and contemporary as they can be, and he explores the American West and its mythology as well as anyone' St Louis Dispatch
