Fadeout

by Joseph Hansen

Book Overview

"Fadeout" is the first of Joseph Hansen's twelve classic mysteries featuring rugged Dave Brandstetter, an insurance investigator who is contentedly gay. When entertainer Fox Olson's car plunges off a bridge in a storm, a death claim is filed, but where is Olson's body? As Brandstetter questions family, fans, and detractors, he grows certain Olson is still alive and that Dave must find him before the would-be killer does. Suspenseful and wry, shrewd...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0030574862
• ISBN13: 9780030574863
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: Holt McDougal
• Length: 187 Pages
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Hammett goes Hollywood

The insight and human empathy of Joseph Hansen's sleuth Dave Brandstetter equals that of sam spade. There's a deepness of thought seldom found in the epigonesof hard-boiled genre. Dave is a warm,gentle soul, understanding human frailty, even when it leads to unsavoury cinseqyuences, And he's justly severe to real miscreants. A refreshing read in mystery literature. He was also a pionieer, in a genre whhere, thanks to Chandlers, homosexuals were less more than effete degenerates. Hansen restored homosexual people's dignity.

More than just a Gay Detective Novel, A Good Novel

Can you imagine the impact of a gay tough guy detective in 1972, that was thirteen years before Rock Hudson. Indeed, can you imagine a gay tough guy detective even today with all the attacks on Sponge Bob and and other stupidities. But it's true. In 1972 Joseph Hansen published the first of what would grow to twenty five novels, twelve of which featured Dave Brandstetter the openly, contentedly gay thinking man's tough guy. Dave is an insurance company investigator in charge of looking into false claims. In Fadeout, pop star Fox Olson's white convertible plunged off a narrow wooden bride and killed him. But where's the body. That's enough of the story, you can guess what happens from there. It's a good story, well written as any novel that starts a series of twelve mysteries has to be. Highly Recommended.

Impressive.

Joseph Hansen manages to fit a remarkable amount of storytelling in this relatively short novel. Fadeout is the story of an intriguing investigation. Yet it is so much more than that. Seemingly without effort, Hansen also succeeds in giving the reader a very revealing look into the inner life of the investigator. Fox Olson of Pima, California has disappeared and is presumed dead. Mr. Olson is many things. Husband, father, local radio personality, writer, painter and erstwhile politician. He also owns a $150,000 insurance policy from a company known as Medallion Life. Dave Brandstetter is a claims investigator for Medallion Life and it is his job to find out what really has happened to Fox Olson. As Brandstetter interviews the policyholder's family and acquaintances he learns that things are not as they appear. The ostensibly happy life Fox Olson seemed to be enjoying was anything but that. All is not well with Dave Brandstetter either. You see, Dave is a homosexual and his life partner of more than 20 years has recently died of cancer. Dave is just now trying to learn how to live again. In giving us the Dave Brandstetter character, Hansen has done a very remarkable thing, at least as far as detective fiction is concerned. Though proudly gay, there is nothing about Dave that would lead anyone meeting him in a professional setting to suspect he is anything other than heterosexual. His speech, his clothes, his mannerisms, everything about him speaks to a mainstream orientation. But since the reader is aware of Dave's homosexuality, the way in which Hansen has him relate to women, other gays and homophobic individuals he encounters in the course of his work is quite interesting indeed. Moreover, Hansen includes a number of scenes between Dave and the people in his own life which very tellingly expose the pain and anguish he carries within. One cannot help but notice the similarities of Hansen's writing style in Fadeout to much of the work of Ross Macdonald. Both writers use a highly descriptive type of prose that is very effective. Both delight in exploring the geographic and sociologic diversity California has to offer. Both make use of long held family secrets to provide key plot twists. And both feature toughminded protagonists who steadfastly seek out the truth. Fadeout is truly an impressive literary effort. Word for word, this book delivers as much value to the reader as any work of fiction out there.

"It will do for a start."

In 1970 Joseph Hansen single-handedly changed the face (or at least the sexual orientation)of the mystery genre forever with FADEOUT and Dave Brandstetter, Hansen's openly and comfortably homosexual sleuth.Brandstetter was not the first gay detective, but he was the first healthy, "normal" gay detective. Brandstetter is handsome, urbane yet ruggedly masculine, and straight in all the essential ways. He is as real a person as a character in a novel can ever be. The same is true of all the series regulars. No one ever--with the exception of Cecil Harris' unconvincing marriage to Chrissie Streeter--steps out of character. Right down to the series somewhat melodramatic conclusion.Besides providing a positive homosexual role model, Hansen's Brandstetter series is remarkable for setting the standard against which 90% of all other gay mystery writers fail to measure up. The writing is superb. Hansen has been compared to Hammett, Ross MacDonald and Chandler. All genre writers following Hansen are compared to Hansen. With good reason.In the first of the twelve book series insurance investigator Brandstetter, still grieving over the death of his longtime lover, sets out to discover what happened to singer Fox Olson. Olson's wrecked car has been found minus Olson. Where's the body? Is the accident an accident? Did Fox committ suicide? Did someone murder him? Or is Fox alive and faking his death? And how does all this relate to the sudden reappearance of Olson's boyhood lover, a man Brandstetter feels queerly connected to--a man now also missing?Read this novel and you will have no further need of reader recommendations. You will hunt down each and every book in the entire series--as relentless as Dave Brandstetter himself.