Led by circumstances to accept the kind of case he dislikes—a "worried mother job"—"Nameless" reluctantly agrees to investigate the strange disappearance of college student Allison McDowell and her mysterious new boyfriend while on a driving strip from Oregon to San Francisco. The young couple vanished suddenly and without a trace after their car broke down and they were forced to spend a night in the tiny village of Creekside, in the remote Northwestern corner of California.
When "Nameless" travels to Creekside and begins to question the locals, he encounters apparent apathy, hostility, and mounting evidence that suggests the couple may have met with foul play. Is one or more of the inhabitants of Creekside responsible? Is it Allison's boyfriend, whose identity is unknown even to her mother? Or is it forces of a far more sinister nature? "Nameless's" search takes him to Eugene, Oregon and then back to the Northern California wilderness. And it leads him from what seems to be a simple disappearance to a complex conspiracy of evil, one which reaches far beyond this remote backwater and threatens to destroy him as well before he can expose the truth.
Praise for Nameless Detective
"Nameless Detective is a classic private-eye hero." —Chicago Sun-Times
"One of the best in the mystery-suspense field is Bill Pronzini." —Washington Post
"One of the most popular series in the modern hard-boiled genre." —South Bend Tribune
"An exceptionally skilled writer working at the top of his ability." —Denver Post
"Pronzini delivers breathtaking suspense." —San Francisco Examiner
"Pronzini is the master of the shivery, spine-tingling, it-could-happen suspense story." —Publishers Weekly