Betrayers

May 10, 2010
MWA Grand Master Pronzini's Nameless Detective series is showing its age in the tepid 35th entry featuring the unnamed San Francisco PI (after 2009's Schemers). In the book's less than compelling first case, Nameless looks into a dispute over real estate that may be connected with a campaign of harassment, which includes a ghost and a cat poisoning. Nameless's side inquiry into how his daughter ended up with a box of cocaine in her bedroom doesn't raise the temperature much either. Meanwhile, one of his two partners, Tamara Corbin, pursues a private matter—tracking down the man who called himself Lucas Zeller when he slept with her. In another unrelated case, Nameless's other partner, Jake Runyon, goes after a bail jumper. Pronzini offers only superficial character insights, as shown by Tamara's realizing in the end that "she'd learned some things, some hard lessons. About men and relationships, about professional ethics and self-protection, about herself."