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Bill Pronzini, who has written a masterful mystery series featuring Nameless, a detective in California, has also written several outstanding stand-alones. Each of them features a man, like the gun fighter in a Western, who pits himself against the world, exemplifying independence, freedom, self-determination. We all remember the Westerns. The man in the white hat comes to town. He belongs to no one and owes nothing to anyone. He takes the troubles of the town on his shoulders, rather like a scapegoat. He often gets himself into trouble in the process, but we know he will find his way out because he is purity, he is everyman, he is what we all aspire to. Matthew Cape is such a man. At first we have little sympathy with him, for he engineers a definitive breakup with his wife by sleeping with another woman so that she will catch them. He leaves her, giving her the house and half of the savings account. He takes the rest and some stock options and after buying every manís sex symbol, a Corvette, begins drifting from place to place. He meanders until he meets a pair of card sharks. They try to cheat him with marked cards, but he turns the tables on them and gets not only his own money back, but that of the others cheated as well. But with the money he finds three photographs. He thinks the grifters may have plans for the people in the pictures so he searches and finds out who they are and tries to warn them. This is probably a mistake because he ends up in the middle of a complete muddle. The characterization is excellent. Cape is a mesmerizing man, a man who seems to have everything the rest of us wants but perhaps has a death wish. He only wants out of the box, freedom to go where he wishes and do what he wants. And yet he cannot stand by and watch people get cheated or murdered. The other characters are, of necessity, less stark and immediate, yet they are also authentic. The plot is well-done. It twists and turns and I in no way guessed the outcome. It is the story of a loner, an outsider, a man who belongs nowhere any longer and yet he belongs everywhere. The book is well-written; Pronzini is a pro and his writing is always well done, crisp, and lean. This is in one sense a morality tale, a story of the individual poised against greed, hatred, and all the other evils that inflict our world. As such we can all take it to heart.
Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, July 2002
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