Camouflage, by Bill Pronzini

Why did I stop reading this series? Things have changed appreciably since I stopped: the agency has...wait, there IS an agency now! With more employees. The cases here involve finding a client's ex-wife to sign some papers, except it turns into a WHOLE OTHER deal involving murder. And one of his employees is investigating the apparent abuse of his girlfriend's child. The cases don't intersect, but they do parallel each other in terms of divorce wreaking havoc, and the injection of new blood helps a lot.

Dragonfire, by Bill Pronzini

Nameless and his former police partner are having a cookout when someone knocks on Eberhart's front door and then shoots him and Nameless as well, as collateral damage.

Of course, this must be resolved, and eventually it is. Nameless finds out what Eb was working on in Chinatown and hunts down both the shooter and the reasons behind the shooting, all before Eb wakes up from his coma.

Scattershot, by Bill Pronzini

Nameless, marking time till something happens. Can a PI have a personal life? This one is intent on messing up his, that's for sure. Also, he is involved in three cases, all of which have gone sour and he has become an active suspect in each case.

Hoodwink, by Bill Pronzini

Another Nameless book, in which he goes to a pulp magazine convention which instigates two locked-room murders. And he gets shot at. And he figures everything out, of course. Oh, and he moves his office to a nicer building and gets a new girlfriend.

Labyrinth, by Bill Pronzini

I wasn't crazy about this one. The overarching theme is that sometimes coincidences are just ... coincidental. What a weird thing in a mystery novel, where there are NO coincidences allowed.

So this finds Our Hero-Without-a-Name being called to the site of a homicide investigation because the police have found his business card in her purse. He's never seen her. Over the course of trying to sort out what's going on, he is hired by a family to babysit one of their members (an adult intent on harming himself), his office is vandalized, and he nearly gets drowned AND shot by bootleggers.

Not a bad book, just not my favorite.

Twospot, by Bill Pronzini and Collin Wilcox

A mystery/suspense novel told from two points of view: Pronzini's Nameless character, and Wilcox's Hastings (presumably a series character of his, though I wouldn't know).

The story revolves around a family winery and a visiting dignitary (ahem) in San Francisco. Very much a product of the era in which it was written: 1978.

Undercurrent, by Bill Pronzini

not bad...

Blowback, by Bill Pronzini

I love the concept of this series, which is 25 years old now: the main character, a P.I., is never named. Sometimes, it's rather jarring, but by and large Pronzini makes it unobtrusive and you don't really notice the missing name.

This is one of the earlier stories, which finds Nameless facing his own mortality while helping out an old Army buddy. Said buddy has asked him to come up to his lakeside cabins and try to sort out an explosive situation that has developed around the wife of one of his lodgers. The husband is insanely jealous of any attention paid to her, and there is a lot of attention since she is gorgeous and seemingly unaware of her effect on men.

In the midst of this, the two friends are witness to a van going off a cliff with its owner dead in the front seat. And then one of the other lodgers turns up missing.

If you don't like hard-boiled detectives, you'll strongly dislike this book, but it's an interesting snapshot of the last 70s culture if nothing else. I'll keep reading the series.