Thu 3 Oct 2019
A PI Mystery Review by Barry Gardner: RICHARD BARRE – The Innocents.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[6] Comments
RICHARD BARRE – The Innocents. Will Hardesty #1. Walker, hardcover, 1995. Berkeley, paperback; 1st printing, December 1997.
I don’t know anything about Barre other than this is his first novel, and he had his own advertising agency. Michael Seidman [at Walker] is very high on him, for whatever that’s worth.
Will Hardesty is forty-ish, a ’Nam vet and a PI who’s pretty much drunk his practce away because of a teenage son dead in an accident he blames himself fo And a marriage that’s slipping away from him. Happy days? Not.
Then the skeletons of several children are discovered near Saddleback Butte, not too far away from his home south of Santa Barbara. A medallion found with the bones is enough to identify one of the dead children to his father, and Hardesty is asked to find the man who killed him. The children died many years ago, but their deaths will bring more, now.
Well, Michael may have something here. This is one of the better first novels in the hardboiled crop of late. Hardesty is a refreshingly imperfect hero, not above lashing out when he’s hurt and not beyond making mistakes that others pay for.
Barre’s rose is clean and straightforward, and he paces his story well through shifting viewpoints and third-person narration. The story is action-oriented rather than cerebral, but it’s done well and will hold your attention until the end. Barre is at work on a second Hardesty novel and I’ll look forward to it.
The Wil Hardesty series —
1. The Innocents (1995)
2. Bearing Secrets (1996)
3. The Ghosts of Morning (1998)
4. Blackheart Highway (1999)
5. Burning Moon (2003)
October 3rd, 2019 at 5:16 pm
THE INNOCENTS was the winner of that year’s Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel.
For some more information about the author, check out this webpage:
https://downandoutbooks.com/richard-barre/
Although I’m not sure when it was conducted, there is a long interview with him that you can read here:
http://mystericale.com/pre-2015/historical/BARRE_INTERVIEW.html
October 3rd, 2019 at 7:04 pm
One I should have checked out, and will check out eventually.
October 3rd, 2019 at 9:08 pm
I bought this one when it came out in paperback, but I’ve never read it. Kids as victims in mystery stories have never appealed to me, nor do books with serial killers.
Not that I know how much of either is involved, but even the hint is enough for me to pass on.
The titles of the others sound familiar, but no more than that. If they came out in paperback, I probably bought them, boxed them up, and said to myself, I’ll get to them later.
October 4th, 2019 at 12:18 pm
So if you don’t want that paperback, Steve, I do. Send it along.
October 4th, 2019 at 1:14 pm
I certainly will, Rick, with the caveat that I have to find it first. “Boxed up” is far from specific enough!
October 4th, 2019 at 2:28 pm
Thanks, no hurry.