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A review by claudia_is_reading
A Country of Old Men by Joseph Hansen
5.0
And we have arrived at the end. And it was a fitting, honest end to a truly extraordinary series.
We knew Dave as a middle-aged man, and at the beginning of this one he is in his 70s and he's not well. And yet, even when Cecil begs him not to get involved in another case, he can't resist the lure brought by a little kid who swears he managed to escape from his kidnapper, who took him after he witnesses how her commited murder.
There is also the story of an old friend of Dave, a writer named Jack Helmers, whose last, as yet unpublished last book, is creating some stir between old friends. The novel is autobiographical and it seems that there are a lot of people nervous about what it could reveal of their own lives.
And yet... even when the mysteries are good and really enthralling, the story mostly deals with Dave's evidently failing health and, as we are closing to the end we want to stop. Because we know what it's coming :(
But when the book ends, yes, sure, there is a sense of sadness. But mostly, I'm grateful. Dave Brandstetter is such a great character: honest and big-hearted, dedicated to bringing justice and unable to say no to a mystery.
As Hansen says:
I'm happy that I found these books and I know I'll revisit them frequently.
We knew Dave as a middle-aged man, and at the beginning of this one he is in his 70s and he's not well. And yet, even when Cecil begs him not to get involved in another case, he can't resist the lure brought by a little kid who swears he managed to escape from his kidnapper, who took him after he witnesses how her commited murder.
There is also the story of an old friend of Dave, a writer named Jack Helmers, whose last, as yet unpublished last book, is creating some stir between old friends. The novel is autobiographical and it seems that there are a lot of people nervous about what it could reveal of their own lives.
And yet... even when the mysteries are good and really enthralling, the story mostly deals with Dave's evidently failing health and, as we are closing to the end we want to stop. Because we know what it's coming :(
But when the book ends, yes, sure, there is a sense of sadness. But mostly, I'm grateful. Dave Brandstetter is such a great character: honest and big-hearted, dedicated to bringing justice and unable to say no to a mystery.
As Hansen says:
My joke was to take the true hard-boiled character in an American fiction tradition and make him homosexual. He was going to be a nice man, a good man, and he was going to do his job well."
I'm happy that I found these books and I know I'll revisit them frequently.