Fade to Blonde by Max Phillips
Whatever you think of the style that Max Phillips has with this little entry is what will hold your interest. My basic problem with Fade to Blonde was that it seems to be a story with no coherent theme. The story, true enough, is about a woman worried about an acquaintance who is a gangster that has threatened her with physical violence and wants our hero to "take care" of him.
But the story jumps around too much for my tastes. It seems to be two stories (or more) blended into one narrative. Ray Corson, a former boxer (among other things) takes on the job that Rebecca gives him, that of trying to get Lance Halliday, a gangster, to leave her alone, preferably by killing him.
In the process, Ray gets more deeply involved in the gangster world than he is prepared to do. Not only does he end up as a member of Lenny Scarpa's organization, he ends up fingering a guy who seems to be muscling in on Scarpa's drug enterprise. As well, he keeps trying to figure out what angle Rebecca has going for her. She is less than forthright with him, but because she had a nice body, his focus seems to be wandering as much as her story is.
The fact that the novel is really just a few short stories blended together is only one aspect that bothered me. The ending doesn't quite mesh and actually made no sense at all when compared with the preceding 200 pages.
Amazingly, this novel won an award. (Shamus Award: Best PI Paperback Original 2005) I don't know much about the Shamus Awards, in fact never even heard of it until I saw a blurb saying this book had won one. (Note: On checking a list of past winners I noted that one of my favorite books Bill Pronzini's Hoodwink had won the first Best PI Hardcover award. So it's not like they don't know what they are doing.) But maybe I just don't have the same ideas of quality.
Fade to Blonde: 2 stars
Thanks for reading
Quiggy
Next: Top of the Heap by Erle Stanley Gardner
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