Mon 19 Sep 2016
A PI Review by Barry Gardner: TIMOTHY HALLINAN – Incinerator.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[2] Comments
TIMOTHY HALLINAN – Incinerator. Simeon Grist #4. William Morrow, hardcover, 1992. Avon, paperback, 1993.
I think I like Hallinan’s books a little more with each one. A couple more and he’ll move into my personal top ten.
Someone is dowsing LA’s derelicts with gasoline and incinerating them. Grist is hired by the wealthy daughter of the latest victim to find the killer, and then blindsided by a press release she issues. He very nearly quits the case the next day, after receiving a personal, hand-delivered note from the killer at his home. He is persuaded by the client and the police to continue; the police, who the client believes have done little until now to solve the case, think that Grist may furnish the only link to the killer that offers hope.
Reluctantly, he acquiesces, and enters into a shaky “partnership” with the LAPD and their psychiatrist; enforced by the client’s threat to go public with the whole mess if the police fail to cooperate.
The story sustains an unusual amount of tension as Grist and his unwilling and less than dependable allies try to identify the killer before he incinerates others, Grist included. If a spur were needed, it becomes apparent that the killer knows Grist personally. Grist wishes it were reciprocal.
The overeducated Simeon Grist — four degrees from UCLA — is one of the better-delineated and least clone-like PI’s of recent years. The killer is believable, and scary. Hallinan is an excellent writer, with a smooth narrative flow and good ear for dialogue. I think this is one of the better private detective tales of 1992.
The Simeon Grist series —
1. The Four Last Things (1989)
2. Everything but the Squeal (1990)
3. Skin Deep (1991)
4. Incinerator (1992)
5. The Man with No Time (1993)
6. The Bone Polisher (1995)
In more recent years, Hallinan has written seven adventures of Poke Rafferty, an American expatriate living in Bangkok, and six cases for Junior Bender, an ex-burglar turned PI for LA mobsters.
September 19th, 2016 at 9:14 pm
The Grist novels were good, but the author reinvented himself moving away from the PI novels to the Poke Rafferty books, which are excellent. Great characters and he describes the setting very well (as far as I can tell).
The Junior Bender novels are just a lot of fun. The Rafferty novels have some humor in them, but are much darker.
Reminds me in a way of the Lawrence Block stories, with Scudder being the more serious stories and Bernie having fun.
September 19th, 2016 at 10:16 pm
I stopped reading the Grist books when this one came along. Too close to a serial killer novel for me. I have read one of the Junior Bender books. A lot of fun, as you say. I enjoyed the characters, in fact, more than the mystery!