BLEEDERS

What may be the final outing in the 30-year career of Pronzini's "Nameless" Detective begins with an easy-to-spot blackmailer's scam, one that almost gets Nameless murdered and forces him to examine his past, present, and future. The novel ends with the implication of his retirement. Gregory Gorton handles the novel's characters well: the villains (many), the good guys (few), and Nameless's wife and newly adopted daughter. Gorton's narration is particularly effective in the descriptions of the mean streets Nameless travels and the motley humans who inhabit them, right down to onion breath and missing teeth. All told, a well-delivered adventure, by writer and reader. If this is Nameless's exit, we shall miss him. T.H. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/JUL 03]