Bleeders (Nameless Detective Book 27)

Bleeders (Nameless Detective Book 27)

Bad money turns unforgettably murderous in the twenty-seventh novel of the long-running, award-winning Nameless Detective series.<br /><br />A simple case of blackmail gets lethally complicated when "Nameless," Bill Pronzini's seasoned private-eye, exposes a nasty scam that involves junior accounts executive Jay Cohalan, his unhappy wife, and a mistress with a serious drug problem. It's the kind of case "Nameless" likes, because bleeders—the blackmailers, extortionists, small-time grifters, and other opportunists who prey on the weak and gullible—sit near the top of his most-worthless-human-beings list. So he contemplates with pleasure the prospect of putting another one or two of these parasites out of commission, and then returning the $75,000 in cash to its rightful owner.<br /><br />"Nameless" discovers, though, that he is not going to be able so easily to close his Cohalan file—not when he finds his client face down in the middle of a four-poster bed with a bloody, powder-scorched hole behind the right ear. And only by a hair's breadth does "Nameless" himself escape a similar fate. Aggrieved, cut to the psychological quick by his close brush with death, "Nameless" embarks on a relentless hunt for his unknown assailant in San Francisco's shadowy underworld. There he encounters bleeders of every ilk—like the loan shark Nick Kinsella, drug dealer Jackie Spoons, punch-drunk boxer Zeke Mayjack, and crankhead Charlie Bright—before he tracks down his quarry.<br /><br />At a deserted backcountry road stop "Nameless," packing his long-unused .38, attends to the last of a bad business and, in a climax as powerful as it is unexpected, finally confronts his own demons. He maybe even conquers them.<br /><br />Praise for Bill Pronzini and the Nameless Detetective series<br /><br />“A stunning and unique achievement in crime fiction. ‘Nameless’ has become an American treasure.”<br />—Booklist