Finished Sa 9/16/17
This is one of my old paperbacks that I first completed on Tu 1/16/95. Joe Gores's writing style reminds me of Donald E. Westlake, engaging story, yet the level of craft is nowhere near 'the greats'- Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald, or John D. McDonald. I still liked the book, but the ending was a bit fantastic.
Eddie Dain- Tall, thin private investigator in San Francisco; married to beautiful Marie, five year old son, Albie (named for Albert Einstein). Dain plays chess, and is a computer expert (in 1993, I really don't know what that would entail), and thinks of his life and his career as a game. This 'distance from life' is his downfall- not connected to what really matters, and this is what he learns in the end.
Doug Sherman- San Franciscan book seller; friend of Dain's (also, his attempted killer)
Randy Solomon- San Franciscan police detective; friend of Dain's (Also, his attempted killer)
Evangeline Broussard- Cajun stripper; initiated the plan to steal the bearer bonds when her boyfriend, Maxton asked her to have sex with one of his friends at the office Xmas party. She becomes Dain's lover in the end.
Jimmy- the man in Maxton's law firm who was originally with Vangie. He is killed in the scramble to recover the bonds.
Keith Inverness- One of the three killers of Dain's family. Near the end of the novel he travels with the gang to cajun country to kill Dain and Vangie. He's only concerned with killing Dain- Inverness is 'haunted' by the murders , yet he just can't seem to kill Dain.
Travis and Nicky- two thugs that accompany Maxton to cajun country to get the bonds and kill Vangie and Dain.
STORYLINE-
Dain and his family live a quiet and happy life north of San Francisco. He takes small cases, but one he cannot leave alone. A man has asked to find out the reason for an explosion on a boat that killed his partner. It's found to be accidental, yet Dain discovers that it was actually a murder.
This leads killers to try to murder his whole family. Dain escapes death, but Marie and Albie are shotgunned to death.
Dain spends years in recovery and evolves into almost a comic book hero- Bulking up over fifty pounds and learns numerous martial arts.
He becomes obsessed with the killers and travels to Las Vegas to work for the mob at one of the casinos. He uses his computer skills to penetrate the operations.
Dain follows Vangie to the cajun country where the two are up against the professional hitmen. This is the best part of the book. Dain and Vangie are unarmed, yet take out four gun toting killers.
In the anticlimax Dain learns that his two best friends, Doug Sherman and Randy Solomon were actually involved in the killing of Dain's family. He kills them both, and lives happily ever after with Vangie.
And, there's Dain's cat named "Shensie" that means crazy in Swahili.
The author's page at wikipedia-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Gores
From Publishers Weekly at amazon-
"No matter how many transformations PI Eddie Dain undergoes, readers will remember him as first met--a sunny, bookish and chess-playing computer whiz in northern California, delighted with his vibrant young wife and three-year-old son. Eddie's hubris and naivete lead to a brutal shoot-out, leaving him alone and, after extensive physical rehabilitation, coldly intent on revenge. With his body trained to a muscular machine, he uses his computer skills to become Travis Holt, an accountant in Las Vegas where he learns how to deal with the underside of the law. That task accomplished, he returns to San Francisco as Dain, a PI willing to undertake shady assignments, notably one for a scummy investment lawyer in Chicago caught in a bearer-bond scam. Although Dain renews his acquaintance with a rare book dealer and a cop from earlier days, he remains empty inside, beset by nightmares of his family's final moments and motivated solely to avenge their deaths. Gores ( 32 Cadillacs ) handles these transitions deftly, portraying a PI who, carrying The Tibetan Book of the Dead with him at all times, is both larger than life and believable. How Dain and a young Cajun stripper end up deep in the bayous of Louisiana, pursued by those he'd been pursuing, and how, weaponless, they plan a showdown, provides a stunning climax, with a significant surprise still left to spring. With plenty of plot twists, violence and sex, Gores still makes this a somewhat lighthearted, race-through read--an updated, slightly self-reflective, comic detective story with a hero both hard-boiled and sensitive, who finally recovers his soul."
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