The Right Madness (C.W. Sughrue Series #3)

by James Crumley

Overview

James Crumley is one of the most revered practitioners of post-Chandler crime fiction, praised by the likes of Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly as a major influence. C. W. Sughrue is Crumley's most indelible creation. Now Sughrue is back, in a searing thrill ride of a novel that has the seen-it-all Montana private eye trying to find out which of a small-town shrink's bizarre patients has made off with some highly confidential files. Fast-paced, brutal, melancholy, and ruefully funny, The Right Madness is Crumley at his uncompromising best.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143037309
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/29/2006
Series:	C. W. Sughrue Series , #3
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.11(w) x 7.74(h) x 0.69(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

James Crumley was born in Three Rivers, Texas, and spent most of his childhood in South Texas. After serving three years in the U.S. Army and completing college degrees in history (BA, Texas College of Arts and Industries) and creative writing (MFA, University of Iowa), he joined the English faculty at the University of Montana at Missoula. He was also a visiting professor at a number of other institutions around the country, including the University of Texas at El Paso, Colorado State University, Reed College, and Carnegie-Mellon. His works include a novel of Vietnam, One to Count Cadence, and seven detective novels: The Wrong Case, The Last Good Kiss, Dancing Bear, The Mexican Tree Duck, Bordersnakes, The Final Country, and The Right Madness. He died in Missoula in 2008.

Editorial Reviews

Do yourself a favor and read it tonight. Nothing you could do with your clothes on will be as pleasurable. (Otto Penzler, The New York Sun)

From the Publisher

Crumley is not for everyone. Besides Chandler, his novels, with their fierce mix of lyricism and violence, remind me most of Lehane's Kenzie/Gennaro series. (Lehane calls The Last Good Kiss a masterpiece.) But if you like Crumley's attitude, his cool view of human nature, his love of the drinking life and the West, and his scorn for authority, there's no one quite like him. He takes it to the limit, and The Right Madness is a good introduction to an important body of work.
— The Washington Post

Patrick Anderson

After a one-book rest, C.W. Sughrue returns as misanthropic as ever. Who does Sughrue like? Well, there's his 12-year-old son Les, his wife Whitney, and his teammate Dr. William MacKinderick. In Missoula, softball amounts to a religion, and hard-hitting shortstop Mac attends the same church. On the night Sughrue's latest descent into misadventure begins, he's actually in good spirits. The Old Goats, his team, has won the state championship in the over-50 division when suddenly Mac chills the mood. He has a p.i. job for Sughrue. There's been a break-in at the psychiatrist's office, and seven confidential patient files are missing. If they're not recovered, the potential for blackmail hovers like a hanging curve. Sughrue hesitates-after all, a previous investigation in Mac's behalf was messy, involving bloodshed and a near-death experience for the investigator-until a $20,000 fee closes the deal. As it turns out, this gig turns into an equally booze-drenched, drug fueled, sex-propelled exercise, during which Sughrue gets to beat up and blow away diverse members of the species he views so dimly, and at whose end the reader will be hard pressed to unknot a cat's cradle of plot lines. Representative Crumley (The Final Country, 2002, etc.) for those who like their hard-boiled noir nice and sour.

Kirkus Reviews