Jackpot by Bill Pronzini
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"[...] Pyramid Lake was there ahead - [...] pale blue, glass smooth, somehow unreal, so that in the first moment you saw it, it struck you as a desert mirage; surrounded by more of the stark brown hills, with a bare pyramid-shaped island [...]"

The above quote represents one of the few good things I can say about Bill Pronzini's Jackpot (1990). This installment of the famous series about an unnamed private detective directly follows Shackles which I reviewed a week ago. Indeed there are numerous passages in the novel that refer to the previous story. That's wasted on me since, unlike many readers, I do not particularly like continuity in plots. I have found this novel slightly weaker than not very strong Shackles.

A secretary in the advertising company where Mr. Unnamed's girlfriend works asks him to investigate the apparent suicide of her brother David. He just won $200,000 jackpot in Reno, lost it all betting on sports, and then took an overdose of sleeping pills. The police say it was certainly suicide, but the sister is not convinced; her brother was planning to marry his girlfriend soon and seemed very happy overall.

On the trail of David's best friend the detective travels to Lake Tahoe and visits a mountain cabin on Fallen Leaf Lake (a real-life beautiful lake located almost exactly on the California-Nevada boundary, one mile south of Lake Tahoe), where he finds first hints that the events might have been more complicated than they seem.

The detective joins forces with a Paiute Native American, John Wovoka - a noble, modern-times warrior for justice - to fight some very bad guys. The whole 'good vs. evil' shtick feels much overdone. The good guys are too good, and the bad ones too bad. Mr. Pronzini begins reminding me of John Shannon with his politically correct clichés, well-meant but inept. The denouement would be interesting if it did not rely on a tired literary device: finding a tape recording that clarifies the events. And the escapade where the detective and his sidekick mete punishment to the bad guys is over-the-top implausible.

The descriptions of mountain and lake vistas caught my attention better than the formulaic plot. When I first saw Pyramid Lake (located in Nevada, northeast of Lake Tahoe) I clearly remember the exact same impression as the author states in the epigraph quote: "pale blue, glass smooth, somewhat unreal." The "desert mirage" simile is particularly apt. More descriptions of nature would make the read stronger. Maybe I am just a little tired of Mr. Unnamed. Have to take a break for a month or two.

Two stars.

View all my reviews