I'm a machinist. I take raw materials like steel or aluminum or titanium and use blueprints to manufacture individual components and assemble them to (hopefully) create a seamless and well working tool. It's my job and I consider myself a craftsman. I make minor mistakes on nearly every project, but if I cover my tracks well enough, they are not seen.
Bill Pronzini is a writer. He takes words, ideas, emotions and experience and creates seamless novels that work beautifully and deliver what the reader is looking for. If there are any mistakes or imperfections, I surely cannot see them. Bill is a craftsman too, and a solid professional. I wish I was as consistent at my trade as he is at his.
I've been reading Bill Pronzini for a long time. Back in the early 80's I was starting to branch out in my reading subject matter. I had read mostly science fiction, which I still loved. But I was reading some suspense novels and enjoying the heck out of them. I saw a book in a store that was co-written by Barry Malzberg, a writer whose work I had enjoyed. The book was called The Running of Beasts and Malzberg wrote it with a guy named Bill Pronzini. The Running of Beasts turned out to be an excellent thriller that was well ahead of its time. I found other books by the same two writers: Night Screams, Acts of Mercy and the rather bizarre Prose Bowl. I then started buying books by Bill Pronzini. The first I read was Undercurrent, a Nameless Detective novel. It was one of the first of that long running series. I then read Panic! Snowbound and another Nameless Detective book called Blowback. I really loved all of these books and Bill Pronzini was cemented as one of my favorite writers.
Times changed over the years. Publishing trends have come and gone, but Bill Pronzini has steadfastly kept at his craft, alternating between the wonderfully involving Nameless Detective series and stand alone novels. I haven't missed a single book of his since those days and I've never been disappointed by anything that has his name on it, whether it be his western fiction, suspense, anthologies or short stories. I loved those early books, but Pronzini has managed to steadily improve his skill at creating vivid characters and suspenseful situations in his fiction.
It appears that Bill Pronzini was trying to do something new with The Crimes of Jordan Wise. It isn't structured like any of his other books. He plays with readers' notions of antagonist and protagonist with it as well. Jordan Wise is a criminal. His crimes are not insignificant and they are coldly calculated. Well, two out of three of them are. Without a trace of conscience, Wise breaks taboos of society for his own betterment and self preservation. This isn't a spoiler; the very title of the novel gives us that much information. By all logic, we should consider Jordan Wise a bad man that surely deserves to be brought to justice for his transgressions. Yet the reader not only empathizes with him, we want to see him succeed at his goals. At least that's the way it is throughout the novel. By the end we are thinking twice about our feelings toward Jordan Wise and his motives.
If this was an attempt to do a bit of experimentation with style and structure, than I'd say that Bill Pronzini succeeds brilliantly. I got this book just yesterday and I finished it this afternoon. When my wife and I had lunch today, the main topic of conversation was about how I couldn't wait to get back to the book.
Like most of Pronzini's novels, The Crimes of Jordan Wise is a tight story and there seems to be no wasted words or unnecessary descriptive passages. The first person narrative is crisp and clear and pointed. A lot of space is devoted to sailing detail, but that is a vital part of the character that the author builds. Intricate detail is also given to the first crime that Wise commits, but that too is critical to the calculating manner in which his mind works. The prose is never dull. On the contrary, I think it's among the most compelling writing that Pronzini has ever done. The descriptions of life and society in the Virgin Islands (where much of the novel takes place) are also vividly painted in colorful detail.
Bill Pronzini fans and those that have yet to read him will both find much to enjoy in The Crimes of Jordan Wise. Like the best fiction, it gives us entertainment and also something to think about.
Bill Pronzini is a writer. He takes words, ideas, emotions and experience and creates seamless novels that work beautifully and deliver what the reader is looking for. If there are any mistakes or imperfections, I surely cannot see them. Bill is a craftsman too, and a solid professional. I wish I was as consistent at my trade as he is at his.
I've been reading Bill Pronzini for a long time. Back in the early 80's I was starting to branch out in my reading subject matter. I had read mostly science fiction, which I still loved. But I was reading some suspense novels and enjoying the heck out of them. I saw a book in a store that was co-written by Barry Malzberg, a writer whose work I had enjoyed. The book was called The Running of Beasts and Malzberg wrote it with a guy named Bill Pronzini. The Running of Beasts turned out to be an excellent thriller that was well ahead of its time. I found other books by the same two writers: Night Screams, Acts of Mercy and the rather bizarre Prose Bowl. I then started buying books by Bill Pronzini. The first I read was Undercurrent, a Nameless Detective novel. It was one of the first of that long running series. I then read Panic! Snowbound and another Nameless Detective book called Blowback. I really loved all of these books and Bill Pronzini was cemented as one of my favorite writers.
Times changed over the years. Publishing trends have come and gone, but Bill Pronzini has steadfastly kept at his craft, alternating between the wonderfully involving Nameless Detective series and stand alone novels. I haven't missed a single book of his since those days and I've never been disappointed by anything that has his name on it, whether it be his western fiction, suspense, anthologies or short stories. I loved those early books, but Pronzini has managed to steadily improve his skill at creating vivid characters and suspenseful situations in his fiction.
It appears that Bill Pronzini was trying to do something new with The Crimes of Jordan Wise. It isn't structured like any of his other books. He plays with readers' notions of antagonist and protagonist with it as well. Jordan Wise is a criminal. His crimes are not insignificant and they are coldly calculated. Well, two out of three of them are. Without a trace of conscience, Wise breaks taboos of society for his own betterment and self preservation. This isn't a spoiler; the very title of the novel gives us that much information. By all logic, we should consider Jordan Wise a bad man that surely deserves to be brought to justice for his transgressions. Yet the reader not only empathizes with him, we want to see him succeed at his goals. At least that's the way it is throughout the novel. By the end we are thinking twice about our feelings toward Jordan Wise and his motives.
If this was an attempt to do a bit of experimentation with style and structure, than I'd say that Bill Pronzini succeeds brilliantly. I got this book just yesterday and I finished it this afternoon. When my wife and I had lunch today, the main topic of conversation was about how I couldn't wait to get back to the book.
Like most of Pronzini's novels, The Crimes of Jordan Wise is a tight story and there seems to be no wasted words or unnecessary descriptive passages. The first person narrative is crisp and clear and pointed. A lot of space is devoted to sailing detail, but that is a vital part of the character that the author builds. Intricate detail is also given to the first crime that Wise commits, but that too is critical to the calculating manner in which his mind works. The prose is never dull. On the contrary, I think it's among the most compelling writing that Pronzini has ever done. The descriptions of life and society in the Virgin Islands (where much of the novel takes place) are also vividly painted in colorful detail.
Bill Pronzini fans and those that have yet to read him will both find much to enjoy in The Crimes of Jordan Wise. Like the best fiction, it gives us entertainment and also something to think about.
The author does not allow comments to this entry
No comments