Mysteries of the 70's.

Smith, Charles Michael

Fadeout

by Joseph Hansen

Univ. of Wisconsin/Terrace Books. 187 pages, $15.95 (paper)

Death Claims

by Joseph Hansen

Univ. of Wisconsin/Terrace Books. 166 pages, $15.95 (paper)

BEFORE THERE WAS John Morgan Wilson's Benjamin Justice or Lev Raphael's Nick Hoffman, before Mary Wings' Emma Victor, R. D. Zimmerman's Todd Mills, or Mark Richard Zubro's Paul Turner, there was Joseph Hansen's Dave Brandstetter, the very masculine, self-assured, openly gay, highly cultured (he likes classical music and avant-garde films) middle-aged claims investigator for the Medallion Life Insurance Company. The University of Wisconsin Press has reissued the recently deceased Hansen's first two novels in the 12-volume series: Fadeout (1970) and Death Claims (1973). Fadeout begins with a preface by Hansen (written a few months before his death at age 81), which succinctly traces the origin of the pioneering detective series set in Southern California, featuring, according to Hansen's obituary in the Los Angeles Times, "the first major gay protagonist in the mystery genre."

Although quite enjoyable, the books are a product of their time, and the reader is transported to the early 1970's with references to hippies, love-ins, the fuzz (the police), phonograph records, bellbottom dungarees, young people whose motto was "never trust anybody over thirty," and electric typewriters. However, Hansen manages to keep the books from becoming dated. And, of course, there is the ever-present cigarette. What manly detective back then would be without one? If the series were being written today, Brandstetter might be wearing a nicotine patch. Both Fadeout and Death Claims involve missing persons (in the first book, it is the insured; in the second, the beneficiary). It is Brandstetter's task to locate the bodies, if any, and to detect any insurance fraud. This leads him into a tangled web of lies, betrayals, multiple suspects, long-held secrets, and long-simmering hatreds.

In Fadeout, one character tells Brandstetter: "Insurance investigators come around when there's something wrong." Indeed there is something wrong, very wrong. Where is the body of Fox Olson, the failed writer turned much-loved radio personality at KPIM in the small town of Pima, whose role as an entertainer required him to "[s]ing, tell stories, play records"? His white Thunderbird was found "[b]attered, flattened, glass smashed out, doors half torn off" after it plunged from a local bridge during a fierce thunderstorm. Is Olson's disappearance the result of a homicide, a suicide, an accident, or something else? His wife believes the body will eventually be found, and that the cause of death will be determined to be an accident. Before Brandstetter can approve payment by his company, he must substantiate that this is the case. After all, he says to the widow, "a hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money." That fact causes him to have a gnawing suspicion that Olson may not be dead at all. It was possible that "he shifted that white T-bird of his into neutral at the top of that slope down to the bridge, stepped out, let the hand brake go, watched the car crash into the arroyo, and then walked off and didn't come back."

The missing person in Death Claims is Peter Oats, a young would-be actor and the son of John Oats, a prominent rare book seller. The father, who was badly burned in an accidental fire and, as a result of dealing with his pain, developed a morphine addiction, is found drowned on the beach. At the time of his death, "John Oats was about to erase Peter as his beneficiary," states Brandstetter. Could Peter, knowing this, have plotted his father's murder? While searching for Peter, Brandstetter encounters several individuals who might also have something to gain from the death of John Oats. Among the likely suspects are John's ex-wife, his former business partner, and the girl who devotedly took care of him.

After reading Hansen's obituary, I was delighted to recognize semi-autobiographical elements in both novels. For example, Hansen had been in the early 50's a Fox Olson-like radio host. According to the Los Angeles Times, he "played an autoharp and sang folk songs" for his listeners. And like the has-been screen-writer Sam Wald in Death Claims, Hansen plied his trade churning out pornographic novels. I'm sure that a future Hansen biographer will have a field day finding additional parallels in the series and in other Hansen works.

One major disappointment of these new editions is the covers. I own an earlier edition of Fadeout, which has pulp-fiction artwork depicting a white car going off the road and through a wooden guardrail. There is a jagged bolt of lightning against a purplish background. That serves as a better teaser than the current cover, a black-and-white photograph of a lonely stretch of highway. There's nothing there to suggest the spellbinding story within. Nevertheless, a new generation of readers will find Fadeout and Death Claims well worth their time and money. With the emphasis in so much of gay literature on youth and beauty, it's fun and refreshing to read about a hero who's not afraid to show that he's aging by putting on a pair of reading glasses.

Charles Michael Smith is a freelance writer living in New York City.