Bohannon's Country: Mystery Stories

Bohannon #2

by Joseph Hansen

From the author of the acclaimed Dave Brandstetter series and winner of the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award comes a superb new collection of mysteries. Fascinating crime fighter Hack Bohannon roams along the central California coast in five tight contemporary stories--some classic Bohannon and some with memorable new characters.

Genres: Mystery, LGBT, Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Joseph Hansen (1923–2004) was an American author of mysteries. The son of a South Dakota shoemaker, he moved to a California citrus farm with his family in 1936. He began publishing poetry in the New Yorker in the 1950s, and joined the editorial teams of gay magazines ONE and Tangents in the 1960s. Using the pseudonyms Rose Brock and James Colton, Hansen published five novels and a collection of short stories before the appearance of Fadeout (1970), the first novel published under his own name.

The book introduced street-smart insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter, a complex, openly gay hero who grew and changed over the series’s twelve novels. By the time Hansen concluded the series with A Country of Old Men (1990), Brandstetter was older, melancholy, and ready for retirement. The 1992 recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Hansen published several more novels before his death in 2004.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.

Reviews

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not all of these stories include Hack Bohannon, but that's ok. One of the two that don't, includes some of the other characters from the Bohannon stories, and it was my favorite of the bunch.

I wish Hansen had written more of these little stories. I liked the setting, and I liked the characters. The mysteries aren't always explained completely, but they're still very good, very comforting tales.

[Aricia Gavriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

You may not believe this, but this slim volume of mystery shorts was once marketed as a gay book (!) ... I guess because one of the stories features a gay victim of violent crime, and rather than the victim being blamed for bringing justifiable wrath down on himself, Hack Bohannon made sure justice was done. So I bought the book from a glbt books catalog I used to get waaaay back when, and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing, the breadth and scope of the situations and characters covered. It's a great pity the first two Bohannon books didn't spin off a longer series. I liked this volume quite a lot and would have been happy to read more.

[Allen Herring · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a fan of Hansen's writing style. Very clean, descriptive, easy and very precise. I really like it. 

The 5 stories are good. The two without the main character Bohannon are pretty tragic compared to the other three. 

I have been reading his Brandsetter mysteries and these are nice shortened versions. 

I am a total fan of Hansen. 

[Kenneth McMahon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent read, good characters and nicely realised atmosphere but most of the stories just end matter-of-factly, with very flat endings. Molly's Aim in particular, the best story in the book, was setting something up nicely and then just ends suddenly.

[Joyce Reynolds-Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quiet, mindful, deep mystery stories with a lovely writing voice. Well worth the read.

[K T · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of short stories, most of them about a retired cop turned P.I.. Set in San Luis Obispo, CA, where I lived for a time as a child.