ABOUT THE BOOK

Fadeout is the first of Joseph Hansen's legendary novels featuring gay sleuth Dave Brandstetter.

Judging by the wreckage of Fox Olson's white convertible, it looked as if the singer had missed a narrow wooden bridge and plunged to his death. Then were was the body?

Olson's wife, daughter and son-in-law insisted it would be found. But insurance claims investigator Dave Brandstetter had his doubts. He thought Olson had chosen to disappear.

Doggedly Dave pursues leads and finds: a relationship between Olson's wife and his manager too warm to be called friendship, the sudden return after twenty odd years of a man who had been Olson's closest boyhood friend, and more than one 'fan' who had reason to resent Olson's hard-won success.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

"The Brandstetter stories develop strongly with a striking quality of measured calm" - London Sunday Times

"After 40 years Hammett has a worthy successor" - London Times

'Unusual in two respects. One is that the insurance investigator, though ruggedly masculine, is thoroughly and contentedly homosexual. the other is that Hansen is an excellent craftsmen, a compelling writer.' - New Yorker

'The most exciting and effective writer of the classic private-eye novel working today.' - L.A.Times

'Spare and stylish' - London Financial Times

'Hansen is to gay detective fiction what Sara Paretsky is to feminist sleuthing.' - Pink Paper