Briarpatch
Ratings3
Average rating4
Fun noir kinda hard boiled mystery.
Took me a while to get into his style. The sort of clipped, flat delivery was great, eventually.
Got the recommendation from a Grantland column, of all places.
Good crime fiction. Ross Thomas wrote very well.
We get interesting characters with murky pasts and murkier motivations, a convoluted story with multiple mysteries that intertwine, lots of witty dialog, some sexy bits, and a slam-bang finish. What's not to like?
Solid 4 stars.
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I came to this book after watching Briarpatch, the television series. I've posted my review of that series noting the changes between the book and the series (which genderswaps multiple characters.)
This is a competently done mystery. It's 1983. Ben Dill is an investigator for a Washington DC subcommittee. He gets word that his younger sister has been killed in a car explosion. He decides to return to his unnamed home town for her funeral. He's asked by his senator to “take a deposition” of his childhood friend Jake Spivey, who was into questionable dealings in Southeast Asia after the fall of Saigon with the even shadier Clyde Brattle.
When he gets there he immediately runs into love interest Anna Maude Singe. The two of them then begin to deal with the corruption of his hometown. Murders happen. Everyone has a scam or an angle.
Ben Dill comes across as a competent, fairly likeable individual with some interesting quirks. On the whole, the story movied along at a good clip to a satisfying concluion.