Fannin is a private eye who was blind to his ex-wife's cheating; but when she ends up on his doorstep dying, Fannin goes hunting her killer with fists and guns blazing in David Markson's Fannin, previously released as Epitaph for a Tramp.
The original title is more fitting; Markson's novel is as bleak and grimy as any noir I've read, as the detective and his cop friend spend a delirious couple of hours in the gutters of early 60s New York to find the killer in a nihilistic finale.
Markson later went on to some acclaim as a literary novelist, but in his peanut-butter days wrote two Fannin detective stories, another noir, and a western before moving up the ladder. You can see where Markson was headed, as his detective enjoys novels and between bouts of mayhem comments on what books he and others are reading.
I stumbled across this one in an antique store in Arcadia, Florida, and for two bucks bought it on a whim. Absolutely recommended for hard-boiled fiction fans.
The original title is more fitting; Markson's novel is as bleak and grimy as any noir I've read, as the detective and his cop friend spend a delirious couple of hours in the gutters of early 60s New York to find the killer in a nihilistic finale.
Markson later went on to some acclaim as a literary novelist, but in his peanut-butter days wrote two Fannin detective stories, another noir, and a western before moving up the ladder. You can see where Markson was headed, as his detective enjoys novels and between bouts of mayhem comments on what books he and others are reading.
I stumbled across this one in an antique store in Arcadia, Florida, and for two bucks bought it on a whim. Absolutely recommended for hard-boiled fiction fans.
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