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Summary: Join Milo on an amiable wander through Meriwether
Review: After having read a string of bad thrillers with stereotyped characters and endings that could be seen a mile off this was a breath of fresh air - an amiable amble through the low-lifes and unfortunates of Meriwether, Montana, recounted in a distinctive first-person style by our narrator, the alcohol- and speed-fuelled Milo Milodragovitch, killing time (and a few, more human, bodies) as a, somehwat inept, private-eye until his inheritance comes through. The best feature of the book is that it is character rather than plot-driven - indeed you may find, as I did, that you don't care how it turns out, just being in Milo's company for a few hours is reward enough!
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Summary: A wonderful, hard-boiled book from James Crumley.
Review: Highly recommended
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Summary: They should re-release this one
Review: I found this gem at a used book store. Best dollar I ever spent. Milo is a man's man, and it's good to find a tough, cool book in a world of cat crimes and legal thrillers. Milo is the cowboy version of Travis Magee (sp?) except funnier. A drunken, brawling, bawdy, gritty hard-boiled ride.
Rating:
Summary: They should re-release this one
Review: I found this gem at a used book store. Best dollar I ever spent. Milo is a man's man, and it's good to find a tough, cool book in a world of cat crimes and legal thrillers. Milo is the cowboy version of Travis Magee (sp?) except funnier. A drunken, brawling, bawdy, gritty hard-boiled ride.
Rating: 
Summary: The Hardest of the Hard, The Blackest of the Black
Review: Milo Milodragovitch is a private detective in the Pacific Northwest, probably in the post-Vietnam, drug using, clenched fist, promiscuous late '60's and early '70's.Like C.W.Sughrue in The Last Good Kiss, Milo makes no bones about his lifestyle, frequently strung out on speed and alcohol, taking beatings and giving them, finding sex where and when he can. He takes a case for all the wrong reasons, and then Crumley shows us that he would likely as not have taken the case even if he had known the right reasons. If there were any right reasons. He falls in love with Helen Duffy and offers to help find her lost brother. He has the wrong information from the wrong friends. He is disliked by any and all that would help him, misled by clients, aided by winos and criminals, and continually sifts through misinformation, disinformation and lies. But it's tough to ferret out the truth when you're going from one binge to the next. It's difficult to find something redeeming about Milo except there is a certain nobility in his tenacity. The characters are strong. This is dark mystery and not for the weak of heart. But it is particularly native to America and the American myth of the hardboiled Private Eye. We're talking hardboiled. Vintage Mike Hammer and Phillip Marlowe. Good stuff. And life goes on after it's all done. At least for Milo.
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Summary: Reluctant Gumshoe,Whiskey Tears
Review: Milo Milodragovitch is an alcoholic, empathetic and reluctantly dangerous private detective. His creator, James Crumley, has managed to take what is potentially a rather tired stereotype and infuse the character with such raw beauty and complexity, that I was completely hooked from page one. If you're looking for a genuine successor to Chandler, here he is. Crumley is as cynical as James Ellroy, but not in Ellroy's distancing way; he manages to have an unsentimental character (Milo) nevertheless display that hardest to write of emotions:tenderness. This is a very good book and might even be..gasp.. literature. But buy it anyway.It's also extremely entertaining.
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Summary: A classic downer
Review: Take it from the title, "The Wrong Case," is not a happy story. In fact, private detective fiction seldom gets more hardboiled or as down and dirty as this one. Crumley's "hero," the recently unemployed private snoop Milo, is a man shattered by a terrible upbringing and by alcohol. But despite his cynical and distrustful nature, he takes a case he knows will be a loser in a last ditch effort to both redeem himself and to find love. The results are about what you would expect. Milo is a completely different character than Crumley's other private detective hero C.W. Sughrue, the party animal star of "The Last God Kiss" among others. Milo has been scarred far deeper by life and fully expects to lose himself to his addictions at some point. His best friends are homeless winos with one foot firmly planted in their graves. Brooding, violent and with a perfectly shocking ending, "The Wrong Case" is one of THE great hardboiled detective novels.
Rating:
Summary: A classic downer
Review: Take it from the title, "The Wrong Case," is not a happy story. In fact, private detective fiction seldom gets more hardboiled or as down and dirty as this one. Crumley's "hero," the recently unemployed private snoop Milo, is a man shattered by a terrible upbringing and by alcohol. But despite his cynical and distrustful nature, he takes a case he knows will be a loser in a last ditch effort to both redeem himself and to find love. The results are about what you would expect. Milo is a completely different character than Crumley's other private detective hero C.W. Sughrue, the party animal star of "The Last God Kiss" among others. Milo has been scarred far deeper by life and fully expects to lose himself to his addictions at some point. His best friends are homeless winos with one foot firmly planted in their graves. Brooding, violent and with a perfectly shocking ending, "The Wrong Case" is one of THE great hardboiled detective novels.
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Summary: When the Snakes Come Marchin' In
Review: The Grateful Dead must have written "Hell in a Bucket" for Milodragovitch, the well-born boy/man who never met expectations. So bright, so charming--what a shame! He's on the skids with booze and drugs, but going down gracefully. Milo is a private eye who just got legislated out of business. The divorce laws have been eased. It used to be adultery and insanity were the only grounds for divorce in his state (Washington? Montana?), which gave him a steady supply of clients trying to nail an errant spouse. Now all it takes is "irreconcilable differences" to win a decree, and who needs a private eye for that? The standard gorgeous lady comes to his office with a tearful request as he is consuming his lunch of raspberry yogurt and "office whiskey." Her brother OD'd on drugs and has been declared a suicide. She vehemently insists he was murdered. Her description of her sensitive, academic gentle brother does not jibe with Milo's recollection of the cold-eyed loser he had seen about town, but he has fallen in love--instantly. He assembles his troop of bums, eccentrics and low livers to assist him in investigating the crime. He discovers layer after layer of corruption and rampant drug dealing in his supposedly peaceful town of Meriwether that his great grandfather founded. He is neither surprised nor dismayed. This is a novel beyond noir; it is a novel of despair. Like Hunter Thompson's hero in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," Milo is destroying himself with clarity and precision. The book is witty, humorous and lyrically written. The action is intense and explosive. But the undercurrents are always there, gray and dark. Brilliantly written and highly readable, put this book on your "must read" list. You won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: When the Snakes Come Marchin' In
Review: The Grateful Dead must have written "Hell in a Bucket" for Milodragovitch, the well-born boy/man who never met expectations. So bright, so charming--what a shame! He's on the skids with booze and drugs, but going down gracefully. Milo is a private eye who just got legislated out of business. The divorce laws have been eased. It used to be adultery and insanity were the only grounds for divorce in his state (Washington? Montana?), which gave him a steady supply of clients trying to nail an errant spouse. Now all it takes is "irreconcilable differences" to win a decree, and who needs a private eye for that? The standard gorgeous lady comes to his office with a tearful request as he is consuming his lunch of raspberry yogurt and "office whiskey." Her brother OD'd on drugs and has been declared a suicide. She vehemently insists he was murdered. Her description of her sensitive, academic gentle brother does not jibe with Milo's recollection of the cold-eyed loser he had seen about town, but he has fallen in love--instantly. He assembles his troop of bums, eccentrics and low livers to assist him in investigating the crime. He discovers layer after layer of corruption and rampant drug dealing in his supposedly peaceful town of Meriwether that his great grandfather founded. He is neither surprised nor dismayed. This is a novel beyond noir; it is a novel of despair. Like Hunter Thompson's hero in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," Milo is destroying himself with clarity and precision. The book is witty, humorous and lyrically written. The action is intense and explosive. But the undercurrents are always there, gray and dark. Brilliantly written and highly readable, put this book on your "must read" list. You won't regret it.
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