Wed 25 Mar 2015
MICHAEL CRAVEN – The Detective & the Pipe Girl. Bourbon Street Books, trade paperback; 1st printing, 2014.
I’m going to go back a way before I begin. I don’t know the exact year it was, but it has to have been sometime in the early 1970s, soon after my wife and I moved to this house in Connecticut where we’ve lived ever since. The local comic book dealer put on a pulp and paperback convention, and Paul you can tell me if I’m wrong, but as I recall, it was in Wethersfield, the next town over.
The guest of honor, or one of them — that I don’t remember — was Mike Avallone. Among other things, he was the creator of Ed Noon, the leading protagonist in quite a few private eye novels. During the panel of size one he was on, he was lamenting the “death of the PI novel,” among other matters. In the Q&A session that followed, I had the temerity to point out that there were these new guys in town, a fellow named Spenser and another chap who shall remain Nameless.
Mike, of course, would hear nothing of it. They’ll soon be gone, was his response, and soon enough, mark my words, he said, nobody will be writing about private eyes any more. I guess you know where this is going. Here it is, nearly 50 years later, and not only are PIs not dead as a genre, they may be more plentiful than ever before. (I may be exaggerating there. Robert B. Parker and Bill Pronzini, each in their own individualistic way, were responsible for a big boom renaissance in the field, starting in the early 70s and continuing on into the 80s and today. You can fill in the names of the other authors who came along on your own, I believe.)
Mike was wrong, but while I obviously didn’t press him on the point, I felt then as I do now, that much of his complaint was that as good as they were, publishers didn’t want any any more adventures of Ed Noon.
Forgive the long intro, but this, all of the above, is what came to mind while I was reading The Detective & the Pipe Girl, the first recorded case of a Los Angeles-based PI named John Darville. (Craven has written on earlier book, Body Copy, a PI novel with ex-surfer turned Malibu private detective Donald Tremaine as the leading character.)
I own a copy of the earlier book, but so far I have somehow managed to not read it. Not yet, that is, based on how much I enjoyed reading this one.
I’ve been thinking about it, and while I’m sure that every other review that you read of this book will tell you what a “pipe girl” is, I’m not going to. I’ve checked on Google, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the term is Craven’s own invention, and once again I’m going to let him tell you about it when you read this book, and if you’re a PI fan, I hope you will.
Darville, who tells his story himself, is hired in this book by a famous but now aging film director to locate a girl he had a small affair with before his wife found out. Which he was OK with, he says, but he was able to stay in touch with her until recently. The phone number he has for her is not working, and she is not returning his attempts to talk to her again.
So, OK, the plot’s not a new one, but Craven has is own voice, or Darville does, in a well-worn but still different wise-ass sort of way, and while we meet many obvious Hollywood types while Darville tries to track the girl down (which he does, and I’ll say no more), we also get a guided tour through all parts of the many neighborhoods that make up the greater Los Angeles area, with many asides as he does so. Since I was there not too long ago, the names of the towns and the streets and his digressive impressions of them were very familiar to me.
The plot is not without its flaws, and I could include a few of them in this review, but once again I’ve decided not to, except for one, the long overly expository ending, easily excused, I think, in the overall scheme of things. It’s also a happy ending for Darville personally, I’m happy to say, and he concludes the book with a few truths about life, of which the least is the following, but it still resonated with me when I read it for the first time:
“If you ever find yourself standing outside a crowded restaurant in the hot sun on the weekend waiting to be seated for brunch, it may be time to rethink things.”
March 25th, 2015 at 4:46 pm
Always willing to try out a new PI writer, though these days it takes a bit more to hold me than it once did.
There are fewer eyes than in the era I grew up in and into the eighties when Parker and Pronzini spurred a new era. There hasn’t been a Parker, Pronzini, or Crumley for the 21rst century yet.
But virtually any genre is never more than one hit book or movie away from full blown revival if the voice is fresh and the material new.
I’ll try a sample of this on Kindle if they have it and go from there. Even if you loathe e-books there is something to be said for being able to read a chapter or two before investing in a hard copy. I’m no longer in the position to venture capital too easily on pigs even in attractive sounding pokes.
March 25th, 2015 at 6:46 pm
I don’t offer money back guarantees, David, so by all means, check it out first before buying. I do the same, especially when it comes to new writers. There really isn’t a lot to be said in a PI novel that hasn’t been said before, but using this book as an example, the genre is still far from dead. In my opinion!
March 25th, 2015 at 8:29 pm
Given the cover, I immediately assumed that it referred to a girl who surfed at one of the SoCal locations called pipelines. The Urban Dictionary defines “pipe surfing” as a slang term for sexual intercourse. And from my checkered past I can tell you it can also refer to a girl who is addicted to using a crack pipe…
March 25th, 2015 at 8:43 pm
None of these fits the the description in the book, Rick, as Craven would have it, not quite. Think “pipe dream” and you’d be heading in the right direction.
March 25th, 2015 at 8:52 pm
Thanks Steve. Not having read it, I had no context except the beach cover to conjure with…
March 25th, 2015 at 9:39 pm
I’m guessing, Rick, but I think the book is one you would enjoy, should you come across a copy.
March 26th, 2015 at 1:18 am
1. David, don’t bother with a sample the book is 99 cents on Kindle. And yep, I bought one if only to visit the L.A. locations.
March 26th, 2015 at 8:55 am
I expect I will enjoy it, Steve. I had already ordered it from Amazon before I first posted in this thread.
March 26th, 2015 at 3:15 pm
Michael
Thanks, I hadn’t looked it up yet. I’ll download it in my Android and read it.
Steve,
I think the right writers can still do something unique with the genre. Whether you liked them or not, did you read Thomas Pynchon’s INHERENT VICE or Michael Chabon’s THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN’S UNION (he’s as much eye as cop)? Granted they aren’t genre writers per se, but both use genre and popular elements in their work, Chabon particularly. Of course I don’t think anyone would have to go quite that far to do something new.
March 26th, 2015 at 5:04 pm
Maybe I was having a bad day at the time, but after reading Thomas Pynchon’s INHERENT VICE for four or five pages, I decided that it wasn’t for me. I don’t remember what it was that was so offputting. I usually give a book at least 20 to 30 pages before abandoning it. I still have the book, though, so perhaps there’s hope for me yet.
March 26th, 2015 at 8:16 pm
The point was only that he did something new with the private eye novel. Pynchon is always challenging. You may not want to attempt his 1000 page AGAINST THE DAY.
April 20th, 2022 at 8:53 pm
[…] read and reviewed The Detective & the Pipe Girl, the first adventure of LA PI John Darvelle here, way back in March 2015. It was a long review, and if it wasn’t completely a rave review, it […]