Vixen

Nameless Detective #39

by Bill Pronzini

When Nameless is hired by Cory Beckett, a beautiful young woman who claims to be a model, to find her missing brother, Kenneth, it seems to be a routine matter. Kenneth has fled San Francisco in a drug-induced panic to avoid trial on a charge of stealing a valuable necklace from the alcoholic wife of the man for whom he works, wealthy yachtsman Andrew Vorhees. When agency operative Jake Runyon locates and questions the frightened young man, Cory Beckett's motives come into question and the case takes on darkly sinister complexities.
Cory lied to Nameless about her livelihood, her relationship with Vorhees, her brother's alleged drug use, and the nature of his alleged crime. Not only is she Andrew Vorhees' mistress, Cory has a secret second lover, factory owner Frank Chaleen, with whom she conspired to frame Kenneth. This bizarre sibling betrayal is part of a diabolical plan that reveals her to be a deadly, designing woman who will stop at nothing to achieve her warped desires.

A series of twists and turns drive the story to a truly shocking climax. For not until then do the detectives realize how devilish Cory Beckett really is, a femme fatale who has brought something new to the species--new, and terrible.

Genres: Mystery, Detective, Fiction, Crime

221 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 23, 2015

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

[Karl · Rating 3 out of 5]

What's the deal here with Vixen ?

I read this book two or three years ago when it was released and titled "Femme" -Hardcover, 1st, 172 pages Published December 2012 by Cemetery Dance - AND IT IS A SIGNED EDITION at that ! In fact you can pick it up (NEW) at Amazon with Prime for half the price it's going for under this new title and cover. It was marketed as a novella in that edition. Now it's called a novel.

I love the Nameless series, and have been reading them since the beginning. Mr. Pronzini has added perhaps a dozen more pages to this edition of the book.

This turn of events has angered me. For me as a fan to invest all these years into reading this series, searching out the books, to be treated this shoddily.

Perhaps, like most fans I purchase the books when they first appear available for sale, at that point they have little or no description of the plot. Pronzini'a last book really made me happy. Then he did this, repackaging and re-titling a previously written book - only three years old.

Mr. Pronzini, You are playing unfair with your audience and fans. Who exactly is supposed to be the audience for this release of the story ?

You have fallen a few rungs down the author ladder.

I do not wish to degrade the series. The Nameless series is a good detective series. This is not the best book in the series. So why release it twice?

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story was headed for a solid 3 stars until the substantially less than stellar ending derailed it. 4 of 10 stars

[Barbara Nutting · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just another good old-fashioned detective story. Not one of my favorites in the series, but an easy one sitting read. As usual, too much sex, especially the awful ending.

Another “I’ve walked in his footsteps” novel. All the familiar streets and highways, especially the Marina and Muir Woods.

I’ll keep reading these books until there are no more no name!

Read in 2013 as Femme, didn’t remember it!

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one was not for me. In fact, it was truly unbelievable with large measures of extreme nonsense. I suppose it was attempt to portray women behaving badly. Didn't work. Done with series.

[Maddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

PROTAGONIST: Nameless Detective
SETTING: San Francisco
SERIES: #44
RATING: 3.5
WHY: Cory Beckett has hired Bill’s detective agency to find her brother, Kenneth, who has skipped bail after having been charged with stealing a necklace from a rich woman. Cory is a “femme fatale” in every sense of the word and uses men for her own purposes. After finding Kenneth, serious doubt is cast on Cory’s veracity. She’s playing a game involving rich Andrew Vorhees, with whom she is having an affair, and a thug, also a bedmate. The stakes get high when Kenneth reveals that Cory and her consort are planning murder. The investigation is painstakingly documented, but I never got a sense of what it was about Cory that hypnotized men.

[Val · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the darkest Nameless Detective yet. A bit too graphic for my taste.

[Hapzydeco · Rating 4 out of 5]

A shocking climax is proceeded by Jake Runyon’s jaded if somewhat cynical observations of life.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was one of the better Pronzini's, although I like them all. There is a sameness to the books but Nameless is an old friend who is always good to visit.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Predictable. He's no Harlan Coban.

[Jae B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great writer but it was just meh. I never got invested in the situation nor these characters. It was just okay. Definitely not a page turner.

[Jonathan Sweet · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reworking of his previous novella, Femme. Disappointing to see this repackaged just a few years later in a money grab.

[John R Urry · Rating 3 out of 5]

More 3.5 stars........same great characters , good story , maybe a bit light on the ending . But still as usual an enjoyable read from the Nameless Detective.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

#39 in the Nameless Detective series. This 2015 series entry by author Bill Pronzini is an intriguing look at a 'femme fatale', to quote the opening words of the novel, but it's a below average series entry.

When Nameless is hired by Cory Beckett, a beautiful young woman who claims to be a model, to find her missing brother, Kenneth, it seems to be a routine matter. Kenneth has fled San Francisco in a drug-induced panic to avoid trial on a charge of stealing a valuable necklace from the alcoholic wife of the man for whom he works, wealthy yachtsman Andrew Vorhees. When agency operative Jake Runyon locates and questions the frightened young man, Cory Beckett's motives come into question and the case takes on darkly sinister complexities. Cory lied to Nameless about her livelihood, her relationship with Vorhees, her brother's alleged drug use, and the nature of his alleged crime. Not only is she Andrew Vorhees' mistress, Cory has a secret second lover, factory owner Frank Chaleen, with whom she conspired to frame Kenneth. This bizarre sibling betrayal is part of a diabolical plan that reveals her to be a deadly, designing woman who will stop at nothing to achieve her warped desires.

[Mildmannered1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick, easy read with an unexpected ending. I much preferred it to the couple of titles preceding this one.

I appreciate that it wasn't another rural setting with peculiar, secretive characters. Also appreciate that Nameless didn't get involved in physical peril; it hasn't been realistic for someone in his early 60s.

I've gotten so used to the main characters that I will miss them when the next title ends. Because it's the end of this very long series.

[Erix · Rating 3 out of 5]

能感觉到非常成熟套路2333，还挺好看的，主要是短。

[John Grazide · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gah! He did it again. First with Kinsmen and Sentinels now with Femme and Vixen. Becasue I'm kind of binge reading the Nameless series I just read Femme.

[D. Norman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Didn’t see the ending coming.

[Brett Wallach · Rating 2 out of 5]

So much padding and hackneyed dialogue from a usually reliable writer.

[Mike Heenan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Way too much filler.

[Charlie Eckhaus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unusual noirish flashback start, establishing an ominous mood.
Milestone development for supporting cast member.
A scene of sudden violence.
Surprise regarding a longtime recurring character.
Milder than expected ending, although I'm vague on a specific of the big revelation.

[Peter Learn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun yo listen to. No surprises in faithful trope

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Riot's '15 Read Harder Challenge Task 23: Published this Year

I had some trouble with this task. There were two or three mis-starts where I would pick a British title that was being released in the US this year but had actually been published last year. Bookish problems.

But I covered all my bases with this one, published barely 4 months ago, the end of June, 2015 and by an old friend to boot! I read a Nameless Detective novel once before (#15 Deadfall) and I remember, if you will pardon my French, it setting me on my pretty little arse, so I had no trepidation in picking this up off the new releases stand.

As the cover of this volume attests, Bill Pronzini is widely regarded as a master of the mystery novel and the hard-boiled detective style especially. If you take a classic noir novel (Double Indemnity, or even the Maltese Falcon) and scale back the dialogue to contemporary society, the result would be a Pronzini novel.

I think the impact of this one was lessened somewhat by my dragging out the read time (busy month). Reading one these novels is not unlike watching one of the classic noir films, with characters and events lining up for an explosive finale, so it's best enjoyed in a just few days reading time to keep the tension and emotion fresh and frantic.

[David Cranmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Nameless Detective is semi-retired which, as VIXEN opens, suits him just fine. As a pulp fiction enthusiast, he prefers spending his days reading and cataloging his book collection, or maybe catching an afternoon Giants game, but above all, he enjoys having others run the investigative agency that he built. Of course, fans who have been following Nameless since his debut novel in 1971 know this idyllic existence won’t last long. And, thankfully, one of the most diabolical femme fatales in a long time— Cory Beckett—hires him to find her brother, Kenny. Bill Pronzini’s description is classic and yet seemingly fresh all at once:


"But what you noticed first, and remembered most vividly, was her luminous gray green eyes. They had a powerful magnetic quality; I could feel the pull of them, like being drawn into dark, calm water. It was only when you got to know who and what she was that you realized the calm surface was a lie, that underneath there weren’t only smoldering sexual fires but riptides and whirlpools and hungry darting things with razor-sharp teeth."

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vixen, another novel in the "Namelees Dectective" series by Bill Pronzini was just ok.
For a series written by an author self-described is a devotee of the old pulp fiction hard- boiled detective thrillers, this book was, to me, quite bland. The villainess, described as a " femme fatale" in the front papers and as " darkly sinister" never really occupied center stage enough to justify the idea that she was a woman who could captivate and conrtol men. This reader never got the feeing that she was the black widow just waiting to bite.

The rest of the characters in the book, Nameless, his partners at the detective agency and those caught up in the spider's web never really came to life, either. This was a surprise for an old pro author like Mr. Pronzini.
No, rather than hard boiled detectivec fictitious put this one down as a three-minute soft-boiled egg.
A little violence and off-page sex, flat dialog, dull plot. Give it a pass.

[Charles Wilson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've never been disappointed by Pronzini before, and maybe if I'd stuck with it I wouldn't have been so disappointed this time, but I gave up on it by page 70 because it was simply too formulaic. It didn't even work as a satire of the femme fatale genre, because it was wooden and humorless. I'm normally a fan of the femme fatale genre, but not this one. If I run out of things to read I guess I might pick it up again, and maybe I'll change my mind, but generally speaking if a writer can't get me within the first few pages I find it isn't worth reading. This is nothing against thicker books; I've read some doorstoppers that started out fresher than this. This didn't kill the femme fatale genre for me, but it may have wounded it.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would like to give this 4 1/2 stars, but not 4. As usual with anything Pronzini writes it is tightly woven and a page turner. My only issue was one odd detail at the end.

In Vixen, the detective agency is presented with a simple skip-trace case. But the woman who hires them presents all sorts of red flags. Her manipulative ways lead others to do her bidding, including her brother who is totally a slave to her wishes.

As the book moves on, secrets are revealed and the team of detectives is brought deeper into her lair. Finally they must figure a way out in such a way that as few as possible are hurt.

It does not go as planned...

[GlenK · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume in Bill Pronzini’s decades-long and generally first-rate “Nameless Detective” mystery series focuses on just one case and shines the light on some singularly unpleasant characters. In classic noirish fashion, we have the titular “Vixen” (sort of Brigid O'Shaughnessy but nasty and without the subdued ice). We also have the very manipulated and very submissive sibling, the wealthy man being used, the raging alcoholic wife, and the in-over-his-head violent schmuck. This volume seems more densely plotted than usual for the series and it is definitely darker. As a slight negative, I did feel the ending was rushed and there was one final plot point that left me scratching my head.

[Amy Thorleifson · Rating 4 out of 5]

With this book, Pronzini recaptures the best of the private detective series, the Nameless Detective. Almost retired, he takes on a case of a missing brother, even though he is suspicious of the sexy sister who brings him the case. What seemed a simple failure to show up in court becomes much more complex as Nameless and his staff learn more about the beautiful but immoral Cory and her history of meeting and marrying wealthy men who own yachts.
An excellent return to his earlier form, I will look forward to the next book in this series.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book from start to finish in one sitting. I have not done that in a very long time. It was a rather short book but it was pretty good and I just kept reading and I can remember doing this with both Pronzini's books and his spouse Marcia Muller's books in times past. He has been writing the "nameless" detective series for 35 years and I guess I have been reading his books for that long.
Good book and you have never read either one of them, and you like mysteries, you will have plenty of reading to do to catch up.

[Elisabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather pedestrian addition to the "nameless detective" series. It overpromises at the beginning, foreshadowing a revelation of incredible evil in the female villain. However, the actual plot reveals rather ordinary manipulation and killings for gain. The "evil" label presumably is sealed by the revelation of an Incestuous relationship with her brother. But through every plot twist and turn, we get only superficial insight into any of the characters, "good" or bad. Would not be out of place as a Perry Mason story.