Title: A Country of Old Men (#12 [last] in the Dave Brandstetter series) Author: Joseph Hansen Published by: Viking, 1991 ISBN: 0-670-83826-8 [hardcover, 177 pages]
Walking at sunrise on the beach near her home, famed designer Madge Dunstan encounters a bruised and grubby little boy who tells a wild story of murder and kidnap. Madge calls an old friend, Dave Brandstetter, and lures him out of retirement one final time to unravel as snarled a tangle of murder and deception as he's ever faced.The shooting death of pop guitarist Cricket Shales looks simple to the police: his pockets hold plastic envelopes of crack cocaine; he was probably trying to deal in someone else's territory. But Dave uncovers a complex cast of people with reason to want Cricket dead -- starting with his frightened onetime lover, Rachel Klein, and widening to include a handsome female record executive, a tall black drug counselor who wears size thirteen gym shoes, a vengeful father, a dying cantor, and the most powerful politician in L.A.
But more than a briskly paced, cunningly plotted mystery, A Country of Old Men examines with understanding and wry humor the relentless process of growing old. Since 1970, Joseph Hansen has, in this celebrated series, mirrored faithfully the world we know from newspapers, television, and our own lives. In this, his farewell appearance, confronted with child abuse, street drugs, the victimization of the elderly, an ailing and world-weary Dave Brandstetter still shows that quiet compassion for the human condition that has won him the affection of readers everywhere.
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