Sun 14 Jan 2018
A PI Mystery Review by Barry Gardner: ROBERT CAMPBELL – The Wizard of La-La Land.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[2] Comments
ROBERT CAMPBELL – The Wizard of La-La Land. Whistler #4. Pocket Books, hardcover, 1994. No paperback edition.
This is the first Whistler since Sweet La-La Land in 1990. Campbell is best known for his Jimmy Flannery books, but my favorite series of his consisted of two books about railroad detective Jake Hatch, Plugged Nickel and Red Cent.
Whistler, an ex-radio personality, a recovering alcoholic, and now a PI working the grungy streets of Hollywood, still remembers the unsolved murder of a cop friend’s young niece a decade ago. Now a young man dying of AIDS has whispered to a relative that he knows who did it, but hes murdered in his hospital bed before he names anyone. Old ghosts, new demons, and ever-present evil haunt Hollywood’s streets as Whistler tries to link past and present.
The Whistler books are among the darker of PI stories, and as a matter of fact remind me to mood and sometimes subject matter of Andrew Vachss. They are rough, hard books that deal with unpleasant subjects, written in terse prose to match. Whistler has never really come alive as a character to me, though Campbell does a creditable job with some supporting players. The narration if shifting third person, and Campbell is adept at telling his stories in this way. These are for only the hardest of hardboiled fans.
The Whistler series —
1. In La-La Land We Trust (1986)
2. Alice in La-La Land (1987)
3. Sweet La-La Land (1990)
4. The Wizard of La-La Land (1995)
January 15th, 2018 at 5:28 pm
I liked both of the Jake Hatch mysteries and always wished there had been more of them. There were only the two that Barry mentions.
Jimmy Flannery was both a sewer inspector and a precinct captain as part of the Chicago political machine and as such the problems he got into never interested me all that much. There were 11 of them, about half of them I never knew existed until I looked them up just now:
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/c/robert-campbell/
As for the Whistler stories, I read one and never a another. Take Barry’s last sentence warning seriously. He meant what he said.
January 15th, 2018 at 11:11 pm
Very dark disturbing series. Well written, but dark doesn’t cover it.