English language

Published May 2, 2015 by Mulholland.

ISBN:
978-1-4447-8447-3
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OCLC Number:
896906097

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4 stars (4 reviews)

'After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successor' The Times Radio personality Fox Olsen seemed to have it all devoted wife, adoring fans, perfect life. When his car is found crashed in a dry river bed, all of California mourns. But there is no body insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter is hired to dig a little deeper. And the more he looks into Fox Olsen's life, the more it seems as if he had good reason to disappear. Fadeout is the first novel starring Dave Brandstetter one of the best fictional PIs in the business, and one of the first ever gay ones. Joseph Hansen's groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to …

6 editions

Review of 'Fadeout' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Dave Brandstetter is an insurance investigator who is hired to investigate a death claim of a local celebrity, whose car plunged off a bridge in a storm. In the absence of a body the insurance company needs to send their own investigator before handing over $150,000 (works out to be about $900,000 by today’s standards). As the investigation continues Brandstetter is convinced that Fox Olson is still alive and he must find him before the would-be killer does.

Dave Brandstetter embodies the tough, no-nonsense persona of most classic Hard-boiled detectives with one major difference; he’s openly gay. As most people know, I have a love for the hard-boiled detective and I’m always looking for new and interesting takes on this genre. I’ve found that in Joseph Hansen’s Fadeout. There are a few reasons why I plan to continue the series and I thought rather than talk about the book, it …

Review of 'Fadeout' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

"Fadeout" by Joseph Hansen is called the first mystery series to feature a "contentedly gay" protagonist. His name is Dave Brandstetter and he is an insurance investigator who recently lost the love of his life to cancer (written originally in 1970, so it predates the AIDS crisis). He has been called in to investigate the "death" of Fox Olson, a local personality and Garrison Keillor soundalike (again, it predates Garrison, but that's who I kept picturing). Olson's car was found down a river after being washed away, but no body was discovered, so Brandstetter needs to figure out if a death payment is due.

So he does what mystery investigators have done since time immemorial - starts turning over rocks and roiling the waters. Nobody seems too torn up that Fox has disappeared or, if he is in fact is dead. Not his wife, not his boss at the radio …

avatar for ChadGayle

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Tal

rated it

5 stars

Subjects

  • Dave Brandstetter (Fictitious character)
  • Fiction
  • Private investigators

Places

  • California
  • Los Angeles