In Memoriam

It was announced yesterday on NPR that one of my favorite authors died last month. Joseph Hansen [there are lots of other sites, too] was an eye-opening author for this naive suburban chickie, his P.I. protagonist created on the bones of Marlowe. Like Spenser and Scudder and Warshawski and Millhone and many of my other favorite "hard-boiled" characters, he pulled no punches, worked himself hard, could suss out a lie at 10 paces, and never let his personal demons override his deep-seated goodness. He was also, as NPR kept saying, the first gay P.I. in popular fiction.

I read all the Brandstetter books I could find, and then I read the books Hansen published as Rose Brock and James Colton. While I didn't exactly love those, they gave me good insight into how a writer's subject can change the structure and feeling of what s/he writes.

When Hansen "retired" Brandstetter after the detective's final case, I was sad. Sad enough to go back and reread the series straight through for the second time (for some books it was the third time). Now I think I may do it again. His descriptions in his books published during the 80s of the AIDS epidemic are gut-punches. His observance of the lies people tell each other when they profess love are just as gut-wrenching.

Great books. Good guy. What a loss.