Los Angeles Times
"Hansen is the most exciting and effective writer of the classic private-eye novel working today."

New Yorker
"Hansen is an excellent craftsman, a compelling writer."

New York Times
"Joseph Hansen is an author who knows his business."

Book Description
Fadeout is the first of Joseph Hansen's twelve classic mysteries featuring rugged Dave Brandstetter, an insurance investigator who is contentedly gay. When entertainer Fox Olson's car plunges off a bridge in a storm, a death claim is filed, but where is Olson's body? As Brandstetter questions family, fans, and detractors, he grows certain Olson is still alive and that Dave must find him before the would-be killer does. Suspenseful and wry, shrewd and deeply felt, Fadeout remains as fresh today as when it startled readers more than thirty years ago.

From the Inside Flap
Terrace Books

About the Author
Joseph Hansen is the author of more than twenty-five novels and is a renowned short story writer. The winner of the 1992 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, Hansen is also the author of A Smile in his Lifetime, Living Upstairs, Job's Year, and Bohannon's Country.

ANNOTATION

This is another mystery involving Dave Brandstetter.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Fadeout is the first of Joseph Hansen's twelve classic mysteries featuring rugged Dave Brandstetter, an insurance investigator who is contentedly gay. When entertainer Fox Olson's car plunges off a bridge in a storm, a death claim is filed, but where is Olson's body? As Brandstetter questions family, fans, and detractors, he grows certain Olson is still alive and that Dave must find him before the would-be killer does.

SYNOPSIS

Joseph Hansen's Dave Brandstetter series of detective novels spanned 21 years and 12 books, earning him the 1992 Lifetime Achievment Award from the Private Eye Writers of America. Fadeout, the first of his novels, published in 1970, introduces the character of Dave Brandstetter, a hard-boiled insurance investigator, who doesn't believe that a folksinger whose car was found smashed in an arroyo is really dead. What makes the Brandstetter series even more remarkable—apart from the exceptional writing, which earned Hansen comparisons to Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald, and Raymond Chandler—is that Dave Brandstetter was openly, comfortably, and thoroughly unstereotypically gay. In 1999 this is notable; in 1970 it was extraordinary. Alyson is pleased to reintroduce this landmark, groundbreaking series, long out of print, to a new audience.

FROM THE CRITICS

AudioFile - Catherine M. Stifter

This classic private eye novel, written in 1970, holds up amazingly well 25 years later as an audiobook. The slightly jaded, highly skeptical insurance claims investigator, Dave Brandstetter, is performed wonderfully by Jim Zeiger. His other characterizations are campy, yet believable, which is perfectly delightful as we discover that the hard-boiled Brandstetter is gay. As Brandstetter struggles to make sense of the unusual disappearance of a local celebrity, he's also grappling with the death of his longtime partner. Here are all the twists and turns of a solid mystery with a sub-text that resonates anew amid the AIDS epidemic. C.M.S. ￯﾿ﾽAudioFile, Portland, Maine

Chicago Tribune

Hansen's dry wit and spare effective prose remain a rarity.

The Los Angeles Times

Quite simply the most exciting and effective writer of the classic California private-eye novel working today.

Boston Globe

Were I awarding a grand master's prize this year, it would have to go to Joseph Hansen...Hansen's economy of works, his sympathy with all the rich variety of characters who people his books...have made him one of our finest writers.

Washington Post Book World

Hansen is a master of kaleidescopic narration.Read all 6 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Joseph Hansen has a richly deserved reputation as a novelist whose work is distinguished by its brilliant clarity of style and rock-ribbed integrity. He has created a body of work that, among other things, chronicles the experience of being gay with precision and honesty; he is, in fact, the father of all of us gay and lesbian writers. (Michael Nava, author of The Burning Plain and Death of Friends)  — Michael Nava