DANCING BEAR

by James Crumley ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 31, 1983

As with Crumley's last moody mystery, The Last Good Kiss (1978), this even danker outing will only hold readers who are won over by the dubious charms of a strung-out narrator/sleuth/anti-hero. This time it's Montana's ""Milo"" Milodragovitch, a cynical (yet quasi-noble) type whose malaise is perhaps a mite overdone: both parents were suicides; Milo's been divorced five times; he's fending off alcoholic depths with schnapps; he's obsessed with his beloved cocaine habit; he's nearing age 52, when he'll finally, ambivalently inherit his father's sizable estate. And Milo's miseries escalate when he takes on a job for an old rich woman who (just out of curiosity) wants to know what's going on between a man and woman who meet in a park near her house. Milo trails the man, sees him get blown up; people start trying to kill Milo; the old woman disappears (kidnapped?); the gnarled, sluggish trail leads to Seattle, a gorgeous journalist (one of several quickie-sex encounters), an Indian reservation, a red-herring about poaching. . . and a shoot-out with the corporate/government villains behind illegal toxic dumping. (Plus: equally nasty words for the ecology fanatics who set Milo up.) Again, Crumley's gritty talent surfaces on nearly every page--but the plot is enervating, Milo's a boor with pretensions (""I have learned some things. Modern life is warfare without end""), and only a fraction of the hard-boiled readership will be steadily engaged.

Pub Date: March 31, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1983

Categories: FICTION