A Country of Old Men Dave Brandstetter Investigation 12 edition by Joseph Hansen Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : A Country of Old Men Dave Brandstetter Investigation 12 edition by Joseph Hansen Literature Fiction eBooks 
'After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successor' The Times
Dave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay.
Joseph Hansen's groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.
After twenty-one years as an investigator, Dave is finally planning to retire. But first he is drawn into one final case a tale of kidnapping and murder told by an abandoned boy. With the police unconvinced by the child's testimony, Dave must unravel a sordid story of drugs, jealousy and fraud before he can rest at last.
A Country of Old Men Dave Brandstetter Investigation 12 edition by Joseph Hansen Literature Fiction eBooks
Poorly formatted as an ebook. Mystery was not as compelling as some of his earlier ones. You didn't really care too much why who did what.Product details
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A Country of Old Men Dave Brandstetter Investigation 12 edition by Joseph Hansen Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
Nobody likes to see the last book in a series of books as great a Hansen's "Brandstetter"-series. It's sad. Especially because of the fact that Dave really is a well constructed character that one grows to like over the years.
But everything has to end someday and I think Hansen did a pretty good job. It's not the ending one would suspect. It's logical and convincing. And it's part of a very good detective-novel. The story is one of the best in the series and Hansen even takes the time to wrap up some loose ends that have been around for ages through the books.
And if you like, you can read the ending as kind of an open end...
Nearly all his friends dead or put to pasture, lured out of retirement for one last case, gay PI Dave Brandstetter decides to investigate the unlikely tale of a little boy who claims he witnessed a murder and was then kidnapped and beaten by a mysterious woman named 'Rachel.' Sure enough, there does turn out to be a dead man Cricket Shales, a first-rate guitarist but less than efficient drug dealer. Pursuing this case against the wishes of his lover Cecil, an ailing Dave is dragged into the underbelly of the music industry, and the grim world of street drugs. As one would expect from Hansen, this is a sharply written, effective and clever detective story. I do think good old Dave deserves a more imaginative fate--in fact, I'd have liked to see Hansen start the book with the last few pages of story, and flash us back to Dave's first ever case in post-Chandler Los Angeles. Then we could start the adventures of Dave all over again! Okay, I admit this is the long goodbye I'd have been happy to postpone permanently.
5.0 of 5 stars –
I love gay mysteries and romances, and this has been one of the best series combining both, and in the process rightfully became for Joseph Hansen a classic in gay literature. This eleventh in the series was just as good as the earlier high-quality ones and continued to build the story.
I liked this for the same reasons I liked each in the series. First off, for those interested, it worked well as a standalone, with its own self-contained mystery, while also further developing the character and life of the MC, his boyfriend and other supporting characters, and smoothly providing any explanations needed to bring a first-time reader up on previous happenings.
Also, it was a nice, short, easy read, with a good, well-paced plot and character development. I enjoyed the walk back in time to my earlier years, with moments of what was then current situations and culture vividly described by Hansen in a way that helped me remember those times. And I liked that the main focus was on the mystery, with the gay aspect and any romance as a major subplot. The mystery itself was engaging and suspenseful, with the investigation having realistic twists and turns. It had a refreshing approach of not featuring your typical detective or PI but an insurance investigator pursuing the clues. In this last book, it was poignant the way the mystery was interwoven with his life. And I liked getting to see yet again the MC dealing with various aspects of the underside of society, while also in stark contrast his caring for some of the victims, and friends, to help them out.
Hansen also developed nicely the whole set of characters. Of course there was more on the MC, with Hansen really getting into the life and mindset of a hard-boiled, matter-of-fact, honorable, self-accepting, sometimes melancholy and grieving gay man who I grew to like for all his skills, heart and humanness. As for the supporting cast, I also got a good feel for who they were, with some new ones to keep things fresh. For those who read the previous books, it was nice that some characters returned; but don't worry first-time readers, they were introduced and described just as if it’s a standalone. A nice bonus has been the MC’s gay life and relationships; and since I liked its interracial, intergenerational diversity, I enjoyed seeing more than in the last book his continuing relationship with his partner. In addition to that, in a manner rather like a farewell tour, people from previous stories would pop up and allowed you to reminisce and enjoy the friendships like the MC did. And just as important was now seeing the aging sleuth realistically dealing with retirement, failing health, its limitations, and the loss of close friends, something that I rarely see in such series, and completed a wonderful dramatic arc at the end of it.
The level of quality that Hansen maintained in this series was impressive; in fact, I fell in love with it. I will certainly miss you Hansen/Brandstetter.
This is the twelfth and final entry in Joseph Hansen's excellent series featuring insurance investigator, Dave Brandstetter. Published over a period of twenty-one years, from Fadeout in 1970, to this book in 1991, the series was witty and very well-written, with cleverly-plotted stories and well-drawn characters. Set in southern California, the books also captured perfectly the geography and the social and economic currents of the place and time.
What really set these books apart was the fact that Hansen created in Dave Brandstetter the first openly gay P.I. to inhabit a series like this, and neither Hansen, not his protagonist ever made a big deal out of it. Dave's sexual orientation was made clear from the opening pages of the first book, and it was simply a fact of life, just like the sexual orientation of any other detective. Dave had a love life and was active sexually throughout the series, but it never seemed intrusive or in any way out of the ordinary. In fact, Dave's romantic attachements were much more believable than those of many of his heterosexual fictional contemporaries.
As the series opened, Dave was already a middle-aged man and by the first pages of this one, he is nearing seventy. Many of the friends who populated the series with him are gone now; the others are all retired. Dave himself is not well; he tires easily and aches all over. His long-time lover, Cecil, begs him to see a doctor, but Dave dismisses the idea and claims he hasn't the time.
The story opens when a friend calls Dave in a panic. A young boy has apparently witnessed a murder and was then kidnapped by the woman he saw standing over the body. The boy, who has clearly been abused, manages to escape from his captor, whose name is Rachel Klein, and is found wandering along a beach by Dave's friend. The murdered victim, Cricket Shales, was a musician who has just been released from prison after serving time on a drug charge. He and Klein, who is also an addict, were once an item and she apparently feared he was coming back for her.
The cops arrest Klein and are ready to declare the case closed. But Dave is not so sure that Klein is guilty and so continues his own investigation of the case, even though he has allegedly been retired himself for a couple of years. In the process, he will put his own life and health in jeopardy.
The story itself is a good one, with lots of twists and turns, but in this book, the mystery takes a back seat to the health problems that are obviously ailing Dave. Along with Cecil, readers have worried over Dave's physical decline, especially in the last couple of books, and it's clear where this one is headed. As one nears the end of the book, it becomes especially hard to turn the pages and you want to linger over every last word.
When we finally reach the end of the case, and of Dave's career, it's a sad and elegiac moment. But one closes the book with a deep appreciation of what was a ground-breaking and very special series. Hansen was a good as any other crime writer of his era and this is a series that readers will remember long after they have forgotten most others.
Poorly formatted as an ebook. Mystery was not as compelling as some of his earlier ones. You didn't really care too much why who did what.
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