COCAINE AND BLUE EYES

by Fred Zackel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1978

I gave up my detecting and went to my eggs benedict. They were colder than a hooker's eyes."" Yes, folks, it's Macdonald imitation time, heavy on the similes, when downbeat San Francisco ex-detective Mike Brenner goes looking, half-heartedly, for a missing heiress-turned-hippie last seen on a houseboat full of cocaine (""A modern young woman might walk out on her man, but she wouldn't leave behind her vibrator""). Before Mike finds her dead and frozen in her family's fish company freezer, he runs afoul of a lethal Chinese ganglord, goes the gay-bar route, engages in photogenic car chases, and fires off a few prose pellets worth a cringe or two (""Fog writhing in the neon""). But some slashing (though overlong) dialogues occur, some convincingly decadent types sleaze by (drug-pushing and sexual jealousy figure heavily), and hungry fans of hard-boiledness will find nothing really wrong with the eggs benedict here--even if, like the man says, they're colder than a hooker's eyes.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1978

ISBN: 0809562138

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1978

Categories: FICTION