Illusions: A Nameless Detective Novel

I've never understood why Pronzini's "Nameless" series isn't more acclaimed - many of the books are out of print.

Long before Nameless and Eberhardt were partners, Spade and Archer were. Even though Sam Spade didn't have much respect for Archer, he knew that you had to avenge your partner's killer. In a similar way, Eberhardt's suicide hits Nameless hard. They haven't spoken for years, but they had been friends and partners for many years before that. What has happened to Eberhardt to make him want to kill himself? Nameless has to know. What he learns shocks him to the core, and makes him realize that he didn't know his old partner so well after all.While this is going on, Ira Erskine hires Nameless to find his ex-wife. Their young son is dying of leukemia and wants to see his mother before he dies. Something about Erskine bothers Nameless's assistant, Tamara Corbin, but Nameless takes the case anyway. He quickly locates the ex-wife and lets Erskine know where to find her. Soon, Nameless has a second jolt when Erskine ends up dead while cleaning his gun. What really happened?In both cases, Nameless realizes that he has been very naive . . . and that his naiveté has been dangerous to others. Although he cannot right the wrongs, he has to find out what really happened. The answers make him sick to the deepest part of his soul. And he has to decide what to do with the unpleasant truth.This is an outstanding book which stands on its own, but you will enjoy it more if you read Dragonfire, Shackles, Quarry and Hardcase first. As I finished reading the book, I also began to wonder where my rosy views about others hide a darker truth. This book can change your whole outlook on life.

A suicide always leaves lingering questions with those left behind and evokes deep feelings of guilt. So is the case with Eberhardt, Nameless's ex-partner, who commited suicide. Nameless is plagued by guilt and goes on an obsessive quest to find the answer as to "why" Eberhardt did it. What drove him to the edge? While pursuing this question Nameless deals with an accidental death or suicide of a former client. His search for answers to that killing leads him into the realms of abuse and the question of whether justice is really ever served by revealing an interpretive truth. Are the victims sometimes the guilty ones even though they have been miserably abused? Is justice a cut and dried formula that we mete out indiscriminately without regard to the circumstances? Come and join Nameless on this painful quest as he attempts to get answers. This is Pronzini at his best in story telling.