James Crumley

C.W. Sughrue, a Montana private eye, is hired to track down a failing author and winds up searching for Betty Sue Flowers, a woman missing for ten years in Haight-Ashbury

A Novel

The Last Good Kiss

"'As sweetly profane a poet as American noir could have asked for' Ian Rankin 'A friggin' masterpiece' Dennis Lehane 'The stunner that reinvigorated the genre and jacked up a generation of future crime novelists' George Pelecanos Meet Private Detective C. W. Sughrue. Private detectives are supposed to find missing persons and solve crimes. But more often than not Sughrue is the one committing the crimes u everything from grand theft auto to criminal stupidity. All washed down with a hearty dose of whiskey and regret. At the end of a three-week hunt for a runaway bestselling author, Sughrue winds up in a ramshackle bar, with an alcoholic bulldog. The landlady's daughter vanished a decade ago and now she wants Sughrue to find her. His search will take him to the deepest, darkest depths of San Francisco's underbelly, a place as fascinating, frightening and flawed as he is. Welcome to James Crumley's America."

The Mexican Tree Duck

One to Count Cadence

Bordersnakes

In the small Northwest town of Meriwether, onetime prosperous private investigator Milo is lured from his reveries of lost opportunities into love, dope-dealing, and murder by one Helen Duffy who asks him to find her lost brother

The Wrong Case

James Crumley is one of the most revered practitioners of post-Chandler crime fiction, praised by the likes of Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly as a major influence. C. W. Sughrue is Crumley's most indelible creation. Now Sughrue is back, in a searing thrill ride of a novel that has the seen-it-all Montana private eye trying to find out which of a small-town shrink's bizarre patients has made off with some highly confidential files. Fast-paced, brutal, melancholy, and ruefully funny, The Right Madness is Crumley at his uncompromising best.

The Right Madness

När privatspanaren C.W. Sughrue äntligen hittar författaren Abraham Trahearne är det på en sunkig bar i Kalifornien, där han sitter och dricker med en alkoholiserad bulldog. I baren arbetar Rosie, vars tonåriga dotter tio år tidigare försvunnit i hippie-erans lyckligt nerknarkade San Francisco. I stället för att köra hem Trahearne tar Sughrue med honom på en resa kantad av urspårade fester och brutala utpressningsförsök  allt för att hitta Rosies dotter Betty Sue. JAMES CRUMLEYS [1939-2008] klassiska kriminalroman En sista riktig kyss[1978] är en våldsam och poetisk berättelse om borttappade själar och överlevande blomsterbarn under ett kallt amerikanskt sjuttiotal. Såväl George Pelecanos som Dennis Lehane har framhållit den som sin generations mest inflytelserika kriminalroman. »Den största detektivroman som skrivits under min livstid.« GEORGE PELECANOS »Mellan Raymond Chandlers The Big Sleep och James Ellroys The Big Nowherefinns egentligen bara ett riktigt stort hårdkokt mästerverk, och det är James Crumleys En sista riktig kyss.« JAN ARNALD, DN »Nästan omöjlig att lägga ifrån sig. Klassisk amerikansk miljö, klassisk amerikansk kriminallitteratur  det är sällan det blir bättre än så här.« GEFLE DAGBLAD »För den som är det minsta intresserad av hårdkokta deckare är denna makalösa historia ett måste.« DAGENS ARBETE »Ett tidsdokument, en brytpunkt där Mickey Spillane och Raymond Chandler spökar i bakgrunden men Crumley dessutom mer än sneglat på vildhjärnor som Charles Bukowski och Hunter S. Thompson.« BORÅS TIDNING »En av det senaste halvseklets mest betydande kriminalförfattare.« JOHN-HENRI HOLMBERG, SYDSVENSKAN »Jag sträckläser. Jag förvånas över vändningarna, förfasas över våldet och kylan och fascineras av alkoholens strida ström längs vägarna.« ÅSA PETTERSSON, DAGENS BOK »En smått fantastisk roman. Engagerande, spännande och underhållande rakt igenom. En sista riktig kyss är en riktig sidvändare, inte enbart för att historien är spännande, utan framförallt för att den är så förbannat välskriven. Rapp dialog, träffande skitiga metaforer och målande miljöbeskrivningar av Amerikas bakgator.« SAND IN MY EYES »James Crumleys En sista riktig kyss som kom ut 1978 är den viktigaste, mest nyskapande noirromanen. Den visade att genren kunde vara så mycket mer. Och stor litteratur.« DENNIS LEHANE »James Crumley är en amerikansk författare av högsta rang... pyrotekniskt underhållande, sexig, medkännande.« THE VILLAGE VOICE »En av de mästerliga amerikanska skildrarna av det fattiga, luggslitna och perversa USA. James Crumley skriver så nära och så bra att Tom Waits skulle kunna sätta musik till hans berättelser.« BLASKAN

En sista riktig kyss

C. W. Sughrue -ex oficial del Ejército, alcohólico y mujeriego- representa el arquetipo del investigador privado de la América posterior a la Guerra de Vietnam. De gatillo fácil y escasos escrúpulos, mientras trabaja en un bar de topless de Montana recibe el encargo de encontrar a un escritor en paradero desconocido. Sin que Sughrue lo pretenda, su búsqueda le llevará a interesarse por la desaparición de una joven diez años atrás en San Francisco. Esta nueva tarea, sin embargo, se convertirá en un intrépido viaje a las entrañas de una nación que sufre las consecuencias psicológicas de una guerra, con sus pesadillas y sus sombras aflorando a cada paso. Con su prosa elegante y un retrato sin concesiones de una sociedad en decadencia, El último beso honesto es una experiencia llena de trepidante acción, cruel ironía y crítica brutal al género humano. El sexo, el dinero, la corrupción, la violencia y las drogas se hacen un hueco en una fascinante historia donde lo más importante es dejar atrás el propio pasado.

El último buen beso

Collected together in this volume are three crime novels - The Wrong Case, featuring Milo Milodragovitch, an investigative newcomer, The Last Good Kiss, in which C.W. Sughure, a man with a fondness for drink, attempts to track down a writer and Dancing Bear, with Milo again.

The Collection

Jacques Mailhos

Qui a bien pu entrer par effraction dans le cabinet du docteur Will MacKinderick, psychanalyste à Meriwether, dans le Montana ? Pourquoi avoir dérobé des données confidentielles de patients ? Sughrue, seul détective privé de la région, vient à peine de commencer son enquête qu’il est témoin d’un accident. Celui-ci ressemble furieusement à un meurtre, mais ne peut pas en être un. Bientôt, d’autres incidents invraisemblables et sanglants s’accumulent. Mais pourquoi MacKinderick a-t-il proposé autant d’argent à Sughrue ? Pourquoi a-t-il soudain disparu ? Comment peut-il avoir autant d’ex-femmes ? Autant de questions qui se résument à une seule : comment peut-on être psychanalyste à Meriwether ?

Folie Douce

The time: late summer, 1962. The place: Clark Air Force Base, the Philippines. Sergeant Jacob "Slag" Krummel, a scholar by intent but a warrior by breeding, assumes command of the 721st Communication Security Deteachment, an unsoldierly crew of bored, rebellious, whoring, foul-mouthed, drunken enlistees. Surviving military absurdities reminiscent of those in Catch-22 only to be shipped clandestinely to Vietnam, Krummel's band confront their worst fears while finally losing faith in America and its myths. Powerful, scathingly funny, and eloquent, One to Count Cadence is a triumphant novel about manhood, anger, war, and lies.

A NEW YORK TIMES Notable Book It's business as usual for Milo Milodragovitch, watching a relationship go sour and running a bar whose real business is cleaning some dirty money, until he gets sent off to hunt a drug dealer’s killer. Prodded by the twin motivations of his prickly conscience and his tight finances, Milo sets off on a trip to find the promised land. The end of the road will be where he first began: Montana, where a beautiful woman, a dangerous man, and a motherlode of truth are waiting for their favorite son to come home—bringing with him a gun, a plan, and a prayer.

The Final Country

Milo Milodragovitch is back in Texas, running the bar of his dreams and trying to do a little private investigating on the side. His relationship with his woman is on the rocks, especially since he had an overnight fling with Molly McBride, the classy dame with the taste for single malt scotch. Now, Molly's persuaded Milo to help her search for and bring to justice the lowlife who raped and murdered her sister. What appears to be a simple stakeout turns hideously violent when it's discovered that Molly's prey is no ordinary miscreant, but a whirl-wind of brutality with major political connections. Soon Milo is calling on connections of his own, including shady computer geniuses, taciturn bodyguards, underground crank manufacturers, and his old pal C.W. "Sonny" Sughrue, in a plot that takes him from sweaty, dusty Mexico to the subzero mountains of Montana.

"Milo Milodragovitch is a once-successful divorce lawyer, who now prefers to spend his days drinking and staring out the window. That all changes when Helen Duffy walks into his office and asks him to find her missing brother. Though it's not his usual line of work, Milo agrees to help - he needs the money, and he wants to spend more time with this beautiful woman. But this is far from a routine case, and whispers of a long-past crime haunt Milo's every move . . . 'As sweetly profane a poet as American noir could have asked for' Ian Rankin 'Like James Ellroy, he is a master of American vernacular, turning tough-guy slang into something like poetry' Independent"

An extraordinary detective story from one of the great American crime fiction authors. Milo once had a thriving divorce-case business in the small town of in the Pacific Northwest, but because of liberal new divorce laws he has taken to drinking and staring out the window. He's up to his third drink of the morning when an attractive young woman walks into his office and asks him to find her brother. He takes on what seems a routine missing-person case in hopes of getting to know her better, but finds himself involved in what is most definitely the wrong case. Everyone is a victim, one way or another, of a crime that took place long before the novel begins.

Michael Connelly

George P. Pelecanos

Jon A. Jackson

Janwillem Van De Wetering

Measures of Poison

'A fantastic road trip...wild, wicked, sweet, painful, courageous, outrageous, and obscene' New York Times Never the most conventional of private detectives, C. W. Sughrue is called in to solve a far from traditional missing persons case. A beautiful woman has vanished, and Sughrue is set to be the next in a long line of people who have tried to find her: the FBI, her well-connected Republican husband, and – most worryingly – a group of South American drug dealers. And his only clue is a hollowed-out sculpture of a duck. From Montana to the Mexican border, Sughrue embarks on a wild ride, as he finds himself in and out of trouble – and the beds of one or two women. And, as he runs from his memories of Vietnam, he ponders the meaning of loyalty and revenge. This is a journey like no other from the pen of James Crumley, the master of a generation of crime writers.

C.W. Sughrue is at it again, and this time he's looking for a beautiful, kidnapped woman named Sarita Cisneros Pines. No one can find her -- not her well-connected Republican husband, not the FBI, not even a group of violent guys with South American accents. And when Sughrue starts searching, working his way from Montana to the Mexican border, he comes up empty too.

One of the most influential crime novels ever written, by a legend of the genre. Tough, hard-boiled, and brilliantly suspenseful, The Last Good Kiss is an unforgettable detective story starring C. W. Sughrue, a Montana investigator who kills time by working at a topless bar. Hired to track down a derelict author, he ends up on the trail of a girl missing in Haight-Ashbury for a decade. The tense hunt becomes obsessive as Sughrue takes a haunting journey through the underbelly of America's sleaziest nightmares.

James Crumley

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