The Last Good Kiss

If you're in the mood for a concentrated dose of the 1970s, let me hand you this copy of this book. The story centers on a private detective who is sent to haul a famous author home from a bender and who, along the way, gets involved in finding a woman who disappeared years ago. This is a novel filled with drinking, having sex, drinking some more, smoking some weed, driving while drinking, drinking while driving and the occasional fist fight. There was no way for me to picture the detective without a substantial mustache and he even drives an El Camino. The women are all ready to have sex with the private dick, although he does turn a few down. And while the women are usually up for some fun, they are also, for the most part, fully show more realized characters who are braver than the men, out of necessity.

As for the plot itself, it's not bad. It appears to spin its wheels for a while in the middle, but once you've had your third or fourth to-go cup of gin and tonic and the rest of that six-pack, the story comes together. This was a fun read, although I spent much of it wondering how on earth they got anything done between the benders and the hang-overs. show less

The best crime fiction I've read in years.

Crumley got on paper the mentality and feel many writers have tried to do and not quite gotten. The syntax, rhythm and structure are equal the best hard boiled noir.

The attitude of his protagonist reflects the deep sense of betrayal and cynicism of many American-Vietnam War veterans which is in many ways similar to the shock the, mostly rural, doughboys of WWI experienced. He portrays it, not by lecturing about it, but by showing how it changed their lives.

I haven't read anyone else, post classic noir era, who sounds so original and not "in the style of."

Crumley is an author I had never heard of until recently, when I came across the first line of this novel playing the board game "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night", and I knew I had to get my hands on it. It's extremely well-written hard-boiled detective fiction, with absolutely no soft center. The characters are all less than likeable, although a couple of them deserve a bit of sympathy from the reader, especially as the author doesn't give them any at all. The story is well-put-together; many more remarkable, almost poetic sentences follow the first one (in fact, it's almost over-written simply because there are so many remarkable sentences), but it disturbed me in ways this genre usually doesn't. The protagonist (for lack of a better show more term), C. W. Sughrue, is more conflicted than most (we blame Vietnam, and a lot of substances), but everyone in the book, including the dog, gives him a run for his money in the screwed-up-head department. Bad things happen --one expects that-- but the motivations behind some of what goes on here are baffling, and almost nobody gets what they deserve. It reminded me of James Lee Burke's later novels, where the darkness seems to be winning. I admire the talent that came up with this one, but I don't think I want to spend any more time in Crumley's world. show less

This book has a famous first line: “When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.”
Rightfully famous. And there are plenty of good ones that follow.
A woman has “a small mobile mouth, and the straightforward approach of a bedroom lady.”
“He couldn’t have been any angrier if I had sat down on his wife’s face.”
And “Life always begins and ends in a bloody muddle, womb to tomb, just one big mess, a can of worms left to rot in the sun.”

C.W. Sughrue, a “seedy private dick” is hired to find a writer, the previously mentioned Trahearne, show more on a long-distance drinking binge. Out of goodness, Sughrue also attempts to find a girl that has been missing for a decade. He is accompanied by Trahearne, and the bulldog. The story is muscular and there are plenty of twists, but what stands out is James Crumley’s prose and sentences.

Speaking of the bulldog, after a particularly debauched hotel stay: “The worst thing that happened, though, was that Fireball took to wearing a rhinestone collar and drinking Japanese beer.”

That's one of the last light moments as the road trip, and story, progress from something of a lark to a darker place. show less

A famous writer has gone on one of his legendary benders and his ex-wife has hired private detective C.W. Sughrue to locate him and see that he makes it home safe before it turns terminal. The chase was a long one but he finally tracks him down in a ramshackle joint in Sonoma with an alcoholic bulldog for a drinking buddy. The meet-up doesn't exactly go smoothly and the writer ends up in hospital after getting shot in a sensitive place. As he's likely to be spending a few days of recovery in hospital, Sughrue agrees to look for the daughter of the owner of the aforementioned ramshackle joint but advises his new client it's unlikely that he'll find anything. Most missing person cases don't get solved if they're not found in the first show more year and this one's been gone for 10 already so he's not too hopeful of turning anything up. The writer discharges himself from hospital a few days early and tags along in the investigation.

This is hard-boiled detective fiction at its finest. Starting as a drink fuelled road trip it quickly supplies enough twists to make even the soberest reader dizzy. The characters are wonderfully drawn and the dialogue is as snappy as that proverbial crocodile sandwich. The writer's family dynamic is certainly an interesting one. Within the confines of an albeit large ranch he has his ex-wife living with his mother who are both in agreement that they detest his new wife. It provides a wonderful backdrop to what is essentially a dark and violent tale of love, betrayal and the sleazy underbelly of the American Dream. show less

I often use the word “protagonist” because I don’t want to have explain why I picked whichever side I did in the hero/antihero debate, not with line becoming increasingly blurry, certainly not in a synopsis or capsule review, where space is at a premium. One thing is without doubt. James Crumley’s private detective C. W. Sughrue is no role model. A daytime night crawler, he spends more time drunk than sober.

Hired to track down a wayward writer on a multi-state binge, the bar fight begins the novel and ends Sughrue’s quest strands him in Sonoma for a few days, where he promptly picks up another case. The bar owner asks him to find her daughter, who ran away ten years earlier. An impossible task yet he gives it a genuine effort, show more if not steady one. This is 1978, so sifting through the remnants of the hippie culture allows plenty of opportunity to partake in alcohol, sex and drugs, particularly as the writer Sughrue originally sought has taken a liking to him and has invited himself along on the investigation. Feeding into each other, they actually find time to do some investigating between the bars and parties. And when Sughrue meets the writer’s family, a self-described viper’s nest, sobriety seems even more like the poorest of options.

But as the case untangles and serious acts require serious responses, Sughrue’s deeper code of ethics, long buried somewhere under his surface of self-destruction, comes forward without hesitation. It’s the contradictions--in all the characters, not just Sughrue--that make the tapestry so rich. And the atmosphere. There is such a foreboding layered into the story that you know that even as Sughrue works things out, the pages are not going to wind down to a happy ending.

The reader is the better for it. This is an excellent example of elevating the genre. show less

"When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.”

What an opening sentence. A kicker. Let me say straight out, this is a five star book; it’s just that five-star reads for me mean they need a place on my shelf and a re-read or more. (Thus, four and a half rating on my WordPress blog). This: this was beautifully written, not an extraneous word but so interestingly, humorously, perfectly descriptive:

“As I ordered a beer from the middle-aged barmaid, she slipped out of her daydreams and into a sleepy grin. When she opened the bottle, the bulldog came show more out of his drunken nap, belched like a dragon, then heaved his narrow haunches upright and waddled across three rickety stools through the musty cloud of stale beer and bulldog breath to trade me a wet, stringy kiss for a hit off my beer. I didn’t offer him any, so he upped the ante by drooling all over my sunburnt elbow.”

But Crumley, and the narrator, C.W. Sughrue, set up an exhausting pace through the seediest of joints. C.W. is chasing an errant Trahearne for his ex-wife, who wants him back at his place and writing his next Great Novel. Trahearne seems intent on drinking his way across the west in the seediest bars possible, until he lands in this one. A fight lands Trahearne in the hospital, and the sleepy barmaid, Rosie, offers C.W. a job finding her lost daughter while he waits on Trahearne’s recovery and release before escorting him back home. The two detour through San Francisco following a lead. The plot's a kicker; I did not expect all the places it went to.

C.W. knows how wretched much of his existence is, and his humor lessons the sadness. He also has a fair bit of compassion mixed in with the anger and the bitterness at those that exploit and are exploited. But he’s never far from a drunk, and he’s closer still to a beer and a whiskey. In these days, you did half your drinking while driving. The unencumbered sex, the porn–if you had any illusions about free love, the 1960s, and their aftermath, this will help disabuse them. Drugs? Why yes, it'll help the booze along.

It took me a long time to finish this book, unusually long for its short length and quality–and for a mystery. All I can say is that it is because of the strength of the writing; out of very clear choices, I’ve stayed far away from C.W.’s world, and to immerse myself in it is both sad and exhausting. It’s like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas written by Raymond Chandler.

“The next morning, the condemned man, who had slept like a child and showered like a teenager preparing for a date, ate as hearty a breakfast as the Holiday Inn could provide, then stepped outside to contemplate the delicate air and the clear blue sunshine of the high plains.”

Sad, beautiful, drunken, funny, tragic; highly recommended. show less