A Sad Song Singing

In '1001 Midnights -The Aficionado's Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction,' Bill Pronzini hailed 'A Sad Song Singing' as "one of the ten best private-eye novels ever written." Crescentia (Cress) Fanio, unwanted at home, is a 17 year old high school dropout and folk music aficionado. She had lived for four months with her lover Richie Darden, a 25 year old itinerant folk musician. Richie left her a locked suitcase with instructions not to open it until he returned. Cress seeks out 35 year old detective Mac (no last name revealed) to find her missing lover and to protect her from three men she believes want to kill her and Richie. Mac is a quiet and tough detective, a light drinker with a moderate temperament. Cress remains fiercely loyal to her departed boyfriend and is ready to fight to maintain possession of the suitcase. The characters are not particularly well developed, and there is little meaningful conversation between Mac and Cress. At one point Mac reflects, "I had no way to read what was in her mind." A reader wants to shout, "Why don't you ask her?" This book, published in 1963, gives an interesting glimpse into the folk music craze in America of the late 1950's/early 1960's. Cress and Mac visit folk-music coffeehouses and even a hootenanny (a large folk music gathering with audience participation). In a disturbance at one coffee house, Mac thwarts police efforts to harass patrons and unjustly arrest a Black American. During this era, many folk musicians had close ties with the civil rights movement and other social justice causes, and this tie-in is nicely revealed in this scene. The plot is basic and simple - find Ritchie and keep the pursuers from harming Cress or stealing the suitcase. Pronzini praises the book for its "emotional depth and impact." I suspect that the impact would be greatest for those born in the 1940's or earlier who loved folk music. I found Dewey's lean prose to be at times understated to the point of flatness. The background details of growing up during the folk movement had some interest, but I was not hugely moved by the one-dimensional characters. There is a 'coming of age' story line in the concluding chapters as Cress starts to perform and finds her calling as a singer. I found this plot thread to be rushed and heavy handed, but you may find it poignant. Mac appeared in a total of 16 novels, beginning in 1947. Mac is often credited for being the first modern compassionate PI, setting the stage for Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer, Michael Collin's Dan Fortune, and Bill Pronzini's Nameless. Bottom Line: A well-crafted entertainment of 192 pages.