The Mexican Tree Duck

Awesome fast-moving crime thriller with a sprawling, formless plot but a riveting story full of bad-ass characters with lousy attitudes, hair-trigger tempers, serious substance dependencies and terrifying amounts of firepower. There's also love and heartbreak, tragedy and hollow triumphs, friendship, PTSD and some friendly waterfowl. Crumley's the king.

The second book in the series was a long time coming, and after The Last Good Kiss, truly one of the classics of noir, perhaps a letdown was inevitable. On the other hand, that wasn't the case with Chandler or Hammett. This book has a set of characters that would be hard to match, and much of it centers on memories of the Vietnam War, as a band of friends goes to battle again--older, but probably not much wiser. The settings--Montana, Aspen, Texas, Mexico, and places in between--are superb. But the plot is so convoluted and byzantine that is hard to understand even when it is sort of explained at the end. You won't feel like you wasted your time reading this book, but you'll wish the author's plotting could have matched his talent for show more dialogue and setting. show less

Every time Crumley did a catalog of the dope the characters were using at the moment, I thought that it must reflect what he was doing as he wrote; nevertheless, I enjoyed it very much. It captured a certain attitude I saw in my friends from the Army after we were discharged.

It does contain quotes such as:

"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."

and

"On the interstate people were going places I'd never been, people perhaps with a future, people whose lives were lived without looking always backward."

Pretty complex goings-on here, where the final piece of the puzzle doesn't fall into place until the last few pages. A Vietnam-vet PI enlists some of his buddies from Vietnam days when he takes on a case--and the Vietnam connection turns out to be no casual one.

The "trinity of 20th century power" is described in the book as "cash, drugs, and firepower"--and the story presents plenty of each. A little too much for me personally, but this is certainly a well-crafted tale.

James Crumley was a natural storyteller. This isn't his best but it's far ahead of many others that I've given five stars.

Cool title, huh ? But that's it. Aging crude lewd rude Nam vets pursue a missing woman across the West in '93. Lots of "cool" talk. Boring.

James Crumley was a natural storyteller. This isn't his best but it's far ahead of many others that I've given five stars.