James Crumley

Reviews
Milo Milodragovich Books
C. W. Sughrue Books
Links

Lots of crime books feature boozy loners, but few are as insightful as those of James Crumley. Crumley's books are character studies more than anything, stories of people who try and screw up and try again.

His first book, The Wrong Case, introduced Milo Milodragovich, a lazy boozer in Montana town who's just working as a private eye to pass the time until he turns fifty and inherits the family fortune. We learn a lot about Milo's family, in fact, about his long-dead alcholic father and shrewish mother, about the bum who became his friend and a surrogate father. Milo manages to solve a murder despite drinking three counties dry, and even discovers the truth behind his father's death. By Dancing Bear Milo has switched from booze to cocaine; it's a miracle he lived through another two books before retiring.

It was Crumley's second book that made a real splash. The Last Good Kiss is a sort of retelling of Chandler'sThe Long Goodbye as narrated by C. W. Sughrue, another Montana private eye, this one prone to violent outburst (when appropriate). I thought I'd read some tough stories, but when I first read this one it was too harsh for me. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, sometimes bad people get away, and some people are good, some are bad, and some are just weak. Last is epic in scope, as Sughrue ranges all over the West from L. A. to Montana and down to Colorado looking for a woman lost a decade ago. Probably the most influencial private eye novel of the last quarter century.

It was inevitable that Milo and C. W. would meet, and they do, in the wild road trip that is Bordersnakes.