by Dennis Lehane
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Loneliness makes up a large part of Jim Messenger's life, so much that he feels he knows it personally. Ruthlessly rating himself as 'Mr. Below Average', Jim's loveless days unfold in a stifling San Francisco, until he eventually plucks up the courage to talk to 'Ms. Lonesome', who like him eats alone every night in the same place. Her polite yet firm refusal to engage in even superficial banter with him provokes his interest more, acting 'like a splinter at the edge of his mind', and, against his better judgement, his curiosity about her grows, until, with summer fading, she fails to turn up several nights in succession. To his horror, Jim discovers that she's killed herself, and that she's not who she says she is, but a 'Jane Doe' with several thousand dollars and no family or ID. Unable to satisfy the niggling of his unwanted obsession, an initial rummage through her belongings turns up a solitary clue which prompts our unlikely hero to head off on 'a healing vacation' armed only with a selection of jazz cassettes and a library book pointing him to 'Beulah, Nevada'. In the tiny, sun-scorched town, an unexpected reaction to the suicide draws him in further, leading to the gruesome revelation of a double murder and its shocking consequences. As Jim delves deeper into the tragic life of a dead woman he barely knows, he delves deeper into his own unsatisfactory existence. And, just as the desert heat, the blazing sun, and the far from warm welcome in Beulah combine to make Jim Messenger the perfect 'stranger in a strange land', so Pronzini's strong storyline, expertly crafted characters and larger-than-life landscape gel seamlessly in this extraordinarily evocative and exceptionally enjoyable thriller. (Kirkus UK)
For three months jazz-loving accountant Jim Messenger has watched the woman he's dubbed Ms. Lonesome order the same supper in San Francisco's Harmony Cafe and leave every night without talking to him or anyone else. Then one night she fails to show up because she's dead, a sad suicide in a bathtub. The police aren't interested in who Ms. Lonesome really was or why she killed herself, but Messenger, who feels in her despair an echo of his own deep loneliness, is driven to find out more about her, even when his quest makes him persona non grata in tiny Beulah, Nevada, a desert town still reeling from the ugly murder of Ms. Lonesome's philandering husband and her eight-year-old daughter. Although there was no proof against Anna Roebuck for killing her husband, a member of Beulah's first family, everybody assumes she was guilty. And although nobody thinks Dave Roebuck was much of a loss, they can't accept the death of his daughter, Tess, who was carefully dressed up after death and thrown into a well. With the laconic help of Anna's sister, rancher Dacy Burgess, Messenger painfully wrestles the truth from Roebuck's powerful family - and from a town determined to shut its eyes to its darkest side. Veteran Pronzini (Hardcase, p. 744, etc.) turns in a spare, beautifully controlled retake on Bad Day at Black Rock that's a-twang with piercing loneliness from the title to the last sorry secret. (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
Jim Messenger hates his job, loves jazz music and can't forget a woman he has seen eating at the Harmony cafe. Each night he watches the woman, who calls herself Janet Mitchell, as they eat their solitary meals. When Messenger learns that she has committed suicide, he is driven to find out why.
Loneliness makes up a large part of Jim Messenger's life, so much that he feels he knows it personally. Ruthlessly rating himself as 'Mr. Below Average', Jim's loveless days unfold in a stifling San Francisco, until he eventually plucks up the courage to talk to 'Ms. Lonesome', who like him eats alone every night in the same place. Her polite yet firm refusal to engage in even superficial banter with him provokes his interest more, acting 'like a splinter at the edge of his mind', and, against his better judgement, his curiosity about her grows, until, with summer fading, she fails to turn up several nights in succession. To his horror, Jim discovers that she's killed herself, and that she's not who she says she is, but a 'Jane Doe' with several thousand dollars and no family or ID. Unable to satisfy the niggling of his unwanted obsession, an initial rummage through her belongings turns up a solitary clue which prompts our unlikely hero to head off on 'a healing vacation' armed only with a selection of jazz cassettes and a library book pointing him to 'Beulah, Nevada'. In the tiny, sun-scorched town, an unexpected reaction to the suicide draws him in further, leading to the gruesome revelation of a double murder and its shocking consequences. As Jim delves deeper into the tragic life of a dead woman he barely knows, he delves deeper into his own unsatisfactory existence. And, just as the desert heat, the blazing sun, and the far from warm welcome in Beulah combine to make Jim Messenger the perfect 'stranger in a strange land', so Pronzini's strong storyline, expertly crafted characters and larger-than-life landscape gel seamlessly in this extraordinarily evocative and exceptionally enjoyable thriller. (Kirkus UK)
For three months jazz-loving accountant Jim Messenger has watched the woman he's dubbed Ms. Lonesome order the same supper in San Francisco's Harmony Cafe and leave every night without talking to him or anyone else. Then one night she fails to show up because she's dead, a sad suicide in a bathtub. The police aren't interested in who Ms. Lonesome really was or why she killed herself, but Messenger, who feels in her despair an echo of his own deep loneliness, is driven to find out more about her, even when his quest makes him persona non grata in tiny Beulah, Nevada, a desert town still reeling from the ugly murder of Ms. Lonesome's philandering husband and her eight-year-old daughter. Although there was no proof against Anna Roebuck for killing her husband, a member of Beulah's first family, everybody assumes she was guilty. And although nobody thinks Dave Roebuck was much of a loss, they can't accept the death of his daughter, Tess, who was carefully dressed up after death and thrown into a well. With the laconic help of Anna's sister, rancher Dacy Burgess, Messenger painfully wrestles the truth from Roebuck's powerful family - and from a town determined to shut its eyes to its darkest side. Veteran Pronzini (Hardcase, p. 744, etc.) turns in a spare, beautifully controlled retake on Bad Day at Black Rock that's a-twang with piercing loneliness from the title to the last sorry secret. (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
Jim Messenger hates his job, loves jazz music and can't forget a woman he has seen eating at the Harmony cafe. Each night he watches the woman, who calls herself Janet Mitchell, as they eat their solitary meals. When Messenger learns that she has committed suicide, he is driven to find out why.
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