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

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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.

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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.

Editorial Reviews

Patrick Anderson
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
Publishers Weekly
At the start of Crumley's brilliant new hard-boiled detective novel, Montana PI C.W. Sughrue (introduced in the author's 1978 crime classic, The Last Good Kiss) is relaxing in a hot tub with his old buddy, psychiatrist William MacKinderick. Their team has just won the state championship in the over 50 softball league. Sughrue, whose body bears "more scars than a practice corpse," has even quit smoking. But when MacKinderick hires him to shadow some of his patients to see who may have taken personal files from his office, his old wild urges come roaring back. "I wanted another cigarette. So badly I couldn't remember why I had quit." Cigarettes, whiskey and cocaine all return to Sughrue's menu as one patient after another dies a gruesome death, and the reasons for the murders becomes less and less apparent. Soon Sughrue can threaten a bad guy with the warning, "I've got a hangover that would kill a normal man." Crumley shows his usual deft touch with poetic language (a shady lawyer boasts "a smile as innocent as the first martini") and humor ("I'm a private investigator, sir; I leave the blackmail to the lawyers"). The themes of nightmarish madness, betrayal and survival will glue readers to the page. Crumley remains one of the finest writers in the Raymond Chandler tradition. Agent, Owen Laster at William Morris. 4-city author tour. (May 9) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
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.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780641829406
  • Publisher: Viking Adult
  • Publication date: 5/28/2005
  • Pages: 304
  • Series: C. W. Sughrue Series, #3
  • Product dimensions: 6.10 (w) x 9.10 (h) x 1.00 (d)

Meet the Author

James Crumley is the author of eleven novels, including the highly acclaimed The Last Good Kiss. His The Mexican Tree Duck won the Dashiell Hammett Award for Best Literary Crime Novel from the International Association of Crime Writers.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 2.5
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Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews

  • Posted January 29, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    Definitely Madness

    I can't say that I have disliked a book as much as I disliked this one, and it's not because it's a badly written book. Crumley does an excellent job of conveying the madness in his characters, and it nearly made me go mad. I hated that he skipped over huge chunks of facts and then threw them in when it suited his purposes, rather than tell the story in a straightforward way that might make the book easier to follow. He created madness by creating such a confusing mess of a story that only got bleaker as it went along. Perhaps he achieved what he wanted, the right madness, but it was more of a nasty scheme than a novel.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 6, 2008

    Just not my kind of novel

    I was intrigued by the critics calling The Right Madness in the tone of Raymond Chandler works, which I love. For me, The Right Madness missed the mark. Yes, there was a lot of drinking and bar scenes, but I don't think the West lends itself to that gritty atmosphere. And even more importantly, the story missed its mark. The ending was less that satisfactory. I didn't care about the characters, and those FBI agents, nope! The plot was just too weak, and sometimes silly, to sustain even a brief 289 pages. Get it as a bargain book and try it for yourself or skip it and read many other superior novels, IMHO.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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