STEPHEN GREENLEAF – Grave Error. John Marshall Tanner #1. Dial Press, hardcover, 1979. Ballantine, paperback, 1982. Bantam, paperback, 1991.

   This book seems to have been published in a vacuum. I don’t really recall any fanfare or critical attention being paid to it back when it was first published. Or if there was, I missed it. And it’s a shame, for it’s certainly a book worth the reading, especially if you’re a private eye fan and don’t yet mind another tale of tangled Californian bloodlines.

   The jacket says Greenleaf is a Chandler fan. It’s easy to believe. He must also be a devoted reader of Ross Macdonald. The similes and other metaphorical flights of fancy are off and soaring from the start. Or take it from page seven: “She filled her blue knit dress the way a miser fills his coffers. … The tiny gold turtle pinned over her left breast was as smug as Governor Brown.”

   Greenleaf’s detective is John Marshall Tanner, once a lawyer and now a private investigator. In this case it seems that San Francisco has its own consumer-advocate version of Ralph Nader, but Tanner is hired by the man’s wife to investigate his strange recent behavior.

   The pair also have an adopted daughter, and she has a problem as well. This one results in the death of one of Tanner’s closest friends, also a private eye.

   I mentioned bloodlines. The trail of too many people leads back to the small town of Oxtail, where too many secrets have never been buried. I had half the answers right away, and the half I didn’t have explained why I didn’t believe the half I knew.

   (It’s not mathematically possible, I know, at least not in the strictest sense, but there is at least another twist and a half before Tanner uncovers the full answer and a half.)

   Keep an eye on Greenleaf. I believe he has a future.

Rating:  B

— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier, July/August 1981.