The Mexican Tree Duck

...but, I'll have to agree with some of the other reviews. This isn't his best. But I'll take a subpar novel by James Crumley, over some of the other authors anyday. Still worth while to see what Sughrue is up to!!!

Okay, I gave you one credential. I served with E Recon 1/7th Cavalry. Crumley's a Nam vet too and in "One to Count Cadence" wrote one of the earliest novels that began to address that experience directly. Here in "Mexican Tree Duck" he creates the emotional landscape that is shared by many of us who "also served." Detective fiction has a subgenre that I might call "My Best Friend did it." Here that genre is mined to create the sense of abandonment and betrayal that many who served in Vietnam are ultimately heir to. My favorite scene is that of Serita's rescue. All the now old farts get it together and do exactly the tacticaly correct thing to do for what turns out, (for them), to be the inevitably wrong reason. Worse they fail to protect their unprotected flank and CW loses his love. Doing what your supposed to and getting screwed for it.... Well every Nam vet I know understands that. On top of that, (the not quite Masters in English is now speaking), what a technically proficient read! Crumley knows how to use this genre and spin his good tale. He has slipped in other books, but this was not one of them, and I will still read them every one.

The first Crumley book I read was "the last good kiss" I have been hooked on crumley ever since. He is a chandlerisc writter who deftly out chandlers chandler. His black crime writting picks up in the 1970's where chandler left off in the fifties. What "the last good kiss" lacked in plotting focus came together completely in "the tree duck". a person simply has to love a guy whose cast of characters include :a drunk bull dog, a juke box with hank snow, twin fish peddlers who also have a sideline in gun running, and a filthy speed freak biker with a good heart and better woman.

C.W. Sughrue is a drunken, dope addict, washed up private detective,and this guy is no Spencer or Elvis Cole. But, just one of the most exciting P.I.s to come out of the mind of a writer. I thought I had read all the really good mystery/thriller authors, I was wrong, James Crumley is one of the best(top five in my book). This book is one you hate to put down and you look forward to the next one by Crumley. This book is a double thumbs up, must read. Be warned it is raw, hard driving, dope dealing, sexy, and outstanding.