Deadfall

Nameless Detective #15

by Bill Pronzini

The Nameless Detective, hired to prove the connection between the shooting of San Francisco lawyer Leonard Purcell and the apparently accidental fall of his brother, Kenneth, from a cliff several weeks earlier, becomes involved in a labyrinth of surprise and danger

Genres: Mystery

Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Mystery Writers of America Awards "Grand Master" 2008
Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1999) for Boobytrap
Edgar Awards Best Novel nominee (1998) for A Wasteland of Strangers
Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (1997) for Sentinels
Shamus Awards "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) 1987
Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1982) for Hoodwink

Married to author Marcia Muller.

Pseudonyms:
Robert Hart Davis (collaboration with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)
Jack Foxx
William Jeffrey (collaboration with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)
Alex Saxon

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deadfall (1986) is the sixteenth entry in the Nameless Detective series. (Forty-six novels so far, and—I hope—more than a few to go.) It’s nothing exceptional, really, but—like all of the prolific Pronzini’s entertainments—it is well crafted, thoroughly professional, and pleasing to fans of the genre.

This time, our nameless hero stumbles onto a murder while he’s on duty (an unenviable assignment, on stake-out as a repo-man). He hears shots, investigates. and discovers a bloody crime scene. The police think the murdered man Leonard Purcell is the victim of a robbery, but his life partner Tom Washburn thinks otherwise. He is convinced his lover’s death is related to the “accidental” death a few months earlier of Leonard’s brother Kenneth, a collector of small objects d’art (snuff-boxes and bottles, to be precise.)

Soon Nameless is on the trail of a missing $50,000 snuffbox, surrounded by a suspicious crowd of the Purcell brothers' disagreeable family augmented by an equally disagreeable cabal of venal art dealers and unscrupulous collectors. There seem to be a lot of pieces to the puzzle, and it takes Nameless a while to sort them all out.

He’s got his personal troubles too. Nameless’ girlfriend Kerry’s ex-husband is now a fanatical fundamentalist preacher, convinced that Kerry—still his wife in the eyes of the great Jehovah—must be immediately restored to him. And he just won’t take no for an answer.

An enjoyable read. Recommended to fans of the genre.

[Carla Remy · Rating 4 out of 5]

From 1986
Begins with Nameless on a SF street at night, waiting to repossess a car (the things detectives really do for money). He hears a gun shot, catches a glimpse of an escaping killer, and runs in to a house to encounter a dying man who says a few words including “deadfall”. Then Nameless is hired to solve his murder. It is a complicated case involving an antique snuff box and the strange death of the dead man’s brother.
Also continuing is the situation with his girlfriend Kerry’s ex husband falling deeper into religious mania.

[The Shayne-Train · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back to form and solving those crimes!

As an aside, for a hard-boiled detective in the mid-eighties, Nameless has a spectacularly progressive outlook on homosexuality.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is a list of all the books (in order) Happy Reading.

1971 The Snatch Random House
1973 The Vanished Random House
1973 Undercurrents Random House
1977 Blowback Ramdom House
1978 Twospot Putman
1980 Laybrinth St. Martin's Press
1980 A Killing In Xanadu Waves Press
1981 Hoodwinked St. Martin's Press
1982 Scattershot St. Martin's Press
1982 Dragonfire St. Martin's Press
1983 Bindlestiff St. Martin's Press
1983 Casefile St. Martin's Press
1984 Quicksilver St. Martin's Press
1984 Nightshades St. Martin's Press
1984 Double St. Martin's Press
1985 Bones St. Martin's Press
1985 Grave Yard Plots St. Martin's Press
1886 Dreadfall St. Martin's Press
1988 Shackles St. Martin's Press
1988 Small Fellonies St. Martin's Press
1990 Jackpot Delacorte
1991 Breakdown Delacorte
1992 Quarry Delacorte
1992 Epitaths Delacorte
1993 Demons Delacorte
1995 Hardcase Delacorte
1996 Spadework Crippen & Landru
1996 Sentinels Carroll & Graf
1997 Illusions Carroll & Graf
1998 Boobytrap Carroll & Graf
1999 Sluths Five Star
1999 Duo Five Star
2000 Crazybones Carroll & Graf
2002 Bleeders Carroll & Graf
2003 Spook Carroll & Graf
2003 Scenarios Five Star
2005 Nightcrawlers Forge
2006 Mourners Forge
2007 Savages Forge
2008 Feaver Forge
2009 Schemers Forge
2010 Betrayers Forge
2011 Camouflage Forge
2012 Hellbox Forge
2012 Kinsmen Cemetery Dance
2012 Femme Cemetery Dance
2013 Nemesis Forge

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#15 in the Nameless Detective series. Nameless' private life continues to flesh out as he contemplates semi-retiring and reducing the physical aspects of P.I. business. This series excels in the marriage of a good mystery handled by P.I. Nameless and the expanding story of his business with partner Eberhardt and his love life with significant other Kerry. In this instance, Kerry's ex-husband reappears as a religious zealot determined to reclaim her because he now doesn't believe in divorce. Excellent read.

The Nameless Detective is back in a mystery that begins when the San Francisco PI witnesses the brutal shooting of Leonard Purcell, a prominent bisexual lawyer. Called upon by the dead man's live-in lover to investigate, Nameless attempts to find a link between the murder and the strange death of Purcell's brother six months earlier. Kenneth Purcell had fallen from a cliff; was it accidental as the police and almost everyone involved believe or was it murder? As Nameless relentlessly interviews Purcell's wealthy but sinister associates, he realizes that the answer may lie with an unassuming and elusive deliveryman.

[Maddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

PROTAGONIST: Nameless Detective
SETTING: California
SERIES: #16 of 40
RATING: 3.75
WHY: Nameless is doing surveillance when shots ring out from a nearby home. The man who was killed had a brother who recently died in an accident, falling off a cliff when drunk. Of course, this makes Nameless suspicious; and he finds himself involved in unraveling a complicated series of events. Pronzini engaged in way too much explication in describing what exactly had happened. Nonetheless, Nameless is one of my favorite characters and I enjoy watching how he handles a case as well as developments in his private life.

[Lukasz Pruski · Rating 3 out of 5]

"...crawling away, one hand clawing at the wood, the other crooked under him in a vain effort to stem the flow of bright arterial blood. Dragging sounds, crunching sounds: trying to crawl away from death."

Yet another item in my Pronzini mini-spree: Deadfall (1986), according to Wikipedia, is the sixteenth installment in the series that now spans almost half of a century. And yet again a quibble with the critics/reviewers who named the Pronzini protagonist "Nameless Detective." He uses credit cards so I strongly doubt he is nameless; he should rather be called "Unnamed Detective."

While on a stakeout for a deadbeat who buys stuff on credit and forgets to pay, the Unnamed Detective (UD from now on) hears two shots and sees a shooter escape. Then he finds a mortally wounded man who - in his dying words - utters "Deadfall." The victim's lover hires the detective to find the killer. In what seems too much of a coincidence it turns out that the victim's brother had died half a year earlier, apparently in a drunken fall from a cliff. Thanks to his contacts on the police force UD is permitted to conduct quite an extensive investigation of the case.

In a parallel and somewhat light-hearted thread UD faces trouble from his girlfriend's ex-husband. As a reverend in a cultish Church of Holy Mission the man does not believe in divorce and wants his woman back. The comedic motifs are welcome, but it is a pity that much of the fun is based on clichés. Also, while Kerry - the detective's girlfriend - is a vivid and well-drawn character, other female characters are quite one-dimensional and portrayed through the prism of pop psychology.

The denouement is logical and plausible and confirms the unfortunately banal observation that human weakness and potential for depravity have no bounds. Deadfall is not quite as good as Hardcase or The Vanished but it is a good read with an interesting story. I am still looking forward to more Pronzini.

Two-and-three-quarter stars.

[John Grazide · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another twisty one! While staking out a house on a car repo case, Nameless hears a gunshot from a near by house. Going to investigate he finds a man shot and dying. But before he dies he mumbles "Deadfall".
A few days later his lover hires Namless to find out who killed him. And as they say, that's where the ride gets interesting.

Turns out the dead guys brother died several months earlier, but that death was rules an accident. But was it? And if not, could they be connected?

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very pleased to see that this was a good old fashioned mystery with lots of characters and lots of clues to what was going. Almost too many in some cases, as I figured out the first murder almost as soon as it was introduced, but fortunately there were other murders and disappearances to keep me going.

This was all a very nice change from Pronzini's locked-room mysteries of other recent books.

As I've said before, Pronzini isn't nearly as good of a writer as his wife, Marcia Muller, but this one did have some interesting character development: particularly in the fact that Nameless is considering retiring at the end of the book. That's always been a problem that Pronzini was going to face, in making his protagonist 20 years older than himself. I'll be interested in seeing where he goes with it ...

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

While on a routine stakeout Nameless hears shots at another home and finds a man who dies in his arms. The man's companion hires him to find the killer and he is quickly introduced to a sordid family. The client believes his companion's death is related to the accidental death of the victim's brother six months earlier. Naturally Nameless discovers key clues missed by the police. The sordid family includes a nympho wife and a drug addled daughter. There are also greedy collectors of antique snuff boxes who will do anything to obtain what they want. Lots of action in this one and Nameless get the crap beaten out of him too.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nameless is on a stakeout for a car repo when he hears a gunshot coming from another house. He rushes across the street and there's another shot. As he enters the backyard he sees a figure running out of the house but it's dark and he can't see any details. The person manages to get in a car and get away. Nameless carefully enters the house to find a man crawling along the floor, bleeding profusely from two gunshot wounds. Nameless leans over to tell him to hang on, he'll call an ambulance, help will be on the way ... and he feels him die. He gets hired to investigate the murder, which is somehow tied in to the death of the man's brother 6 months earlier. Interesting? Yep!

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 3 out of 5]

not best, also spoiled by pencilled comments in margins

[Sally Plunkett · Rating 4 out of 5]

#15 of The Nameless Detective Series

[Eliana]

Old style detective series with excellent writing, plots and characters throughout

[Harry Addington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great series of the Nameless Detective

[La'Jacinth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am so loving the style and type of writing of Pronzini. He is not too deteailed but just enough to place you as the detective.. Getting lost in his stories is wonderful.

[Nat Kidder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another well-written entry from the master of atmospheric thrillers. Would get 5 stars if Pronzini weren't so strident in his satire of Evangelicals.