Dave Brandstetter

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Created by Joseph Hansen
Pseudonyms include Rose Brock & James Colton)
(1923-2004)

“My joke was to take the true hard-boiled character in an American fiction tradition and make him homosexual. He was going to be a nice man, a good man, and he was going to do his job well.”
— Joseph Hansen

“But with so many dying, we better love each other for real, and all we can — we’re so lucky to have the chance.”
— Cecil to Dave, in A Country of Old Men

In many ways a conventional P.I. — although officially he’s an insurance claims investigator — DAVE BRANDSTETTER makes for a particularly notable read because when he made his debut, in 1970’s Fadeout, he was one of the few convincing (male) gay characters in crime writing. And he’s still one of the most realistic and grounded.

What makes the Brandstetter books very good however, is the way they combine a compelling, well-written ‘whodunit’ with their evocation of 70’s and 80’s Southern California, particularly Los Angeles. Listen to this, from Fadeout:

“Fog shrouded the canyon, a box canyon above a California town called Pima. It rained. Not hard rain but steady and grey and dismal. Shaggy pines loomed through the mist like threats. Sycamores made white twisted gestures above the arroyo. Down the arroyo water poured, ugly, angry and deep. The road shouldered the arroyo. It was a bad road. The rains had chewed its edges. There were holes. Mud and rock half buried it in places. It was steep and winding and there were no guard rails.”

The fact that Joseph Hansen rewrote that passage thirty four times is typical of his writing style. Wonderfully descriptive of its Southern California settings — and in particular L.A.- in a way few before have been. Chandler and Ross Macdonald spring to mind. The books also have the kind of effortless dialogue (now ‘dialogue’ has become noticed with the resurgence of Elmore Leonard) that marks a great writer. Added to this there is the kind of characterisation that makes you want to know more and, well, “care.” Written without being patronising about everyday ‘gay life’, the books also recall Armistead Maupin’s Tales from the City. No doubt about it, this sort of writing makes for one of the best series in the genre.

Throughout the twelve books Brandstetter grows — quite literally into an old man — as he come to terms with the turmoil of his personal relationships. The emotional sub-text (as it were) of the books intertwines with the plot, the two often being resolved together. And what plots! Death Claims (1973), for example, sees Dave investigating the death of a bookseller who fought to stay alive to be with his lover. Dave’s own relationship is seriously foundering with the weight of his emotional baggage — his own unresolved grief for a dead lover — and resolving the ‘death claim’ is as much about the need to live and move on as anything. A memorable and satisfying book which is well worth re-reading. As is Early Graves (1987). Its subject is AIDS but seen as a metaphor for death, it is given a new significance and twist by Hansen’s handling of it.

And kudos should be given to Hansen for his deft handling of Dave’s long-term relationship with young, black TV reporter Cecil Harris with honesty and grace. It’s a believable and adult relationship, and that’s a rare enough thing, gay or straight, in detective fiction.

If one was to criticise the books it would be in the way that Hansen tries too hard to weld worthy themes onto his plots. Sometimes the result can come across as contrived. Obedience (1988), for example, fails for this reason.

However, given the fact the Brandstetter books are amongst the best “series” books you’re likely to come across, even if a times they appear to be somewhat neglected, you get an idea why they have built up a loyal following over the years.

The Los Angeles Times once called Hansen “the most exciting and effective writer of the classic private eye novel working today” and in 1992, he received The Eye, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America.

Hansen has also written a fine series of short stories featuring ex-deputy sherriff, and sometime-private eye Hack Bohannon. Under the name of Rose Brockman, he wrote romantic suspense novels.

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL (JULY 2018)

  • Don’t get too excited, but Stephen McFeely & Christopher Markus (yeah, the Marvel Infinity War guys) have just nailed the option to Joseph Hansen’s amazing Dave Brandstetter P.I. novels. They talk about it at around 2:00:00 on this episode of Kevin Smith’s Fat Man on Batman. (Thanks, Andrew)

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL (JANUARY 2022)

  • In January 2022,  Soho Syndicate unleashed a new edition of Fadeout, the first Brandstetter novel, with plans to release all twelve books in the series by the end of the year. The new edition of Fadeout kicks off with a heartfelt new introduction by Michael Nava, the creator of lawyer/sleuth Henry Rios.

LETTERS, WE GET LETTERS!

In November 2000, I received this:

Dear Mr. Smith,

It’s true, I am no youngster, but I am still writing. Since I wound up the Dave Brandstetter series with A Country of Old Men, I have published two non-mystery novels, Living Upstairs and Jack of Hearts and a number of short stories (in Ellery Queen’s and Alfred Hitchcock’s, and Mary Higgins Clark’s Mystery Magazines), as well as a brief memoir of my late friend, Don Slater, A Few Doors West of Hope, and a book of verse, Ghosts. Six crime stories of mine, including a couple featuring Hack Bohannon, appear this month in the book Blood, Snow, & Classic Cars. And I have just finished a novel, Stubblefields Galore, a sequel to Living Upstairs.

A friend of mine picked up and forwarded to me your piece on Rara-Avis when it was new, but didn’t know how to find it again. Another friend who is nimbler on the computer (and younger) was able to trace it (and your identity) for me yesterday. Hence this letter.

Naturally, I want to thank you for your kind words about my books, but also to correct your impression that I am not gay. A man may think as he pleases, but still must be careful what he says to strangers, in the case of the internet a vast number of strangers. That I am known to be homosexual is important to the viability of what I have spent a lifetime writing about in some 35 books, published all over the world. I do agree with you that it would be not just “interesting,” but passing strange if “Brandstetter was created by a straight author.

You might like to correct your misstatement on Rara-Avis. I’d appreciate that. And thanks again for writing so favorably about me and my work.

Joseph Hansen

And I sheepishly replied…

Dear Mr. Hansen,

What can I say? In fact, what did I say? At this point, I’m not even sure why — or even if — I thought you weren’t gay. That original post to Rara Avis was posted over four or five years ago. But I regret the error.

I probably went on to explain that I had discovered his books in the pre-internet eighties, when any information about an author was generally confined to a few skimpy lines in the back pages of whatever paperback I was reading, and at least a few of the editions I read in those years did feature a bio mentioning a wife and child. It never occurred to me to double-check an author’s sexual preferences when I started compiling the notes that would eventually form the foundation of this site. Or that it even mattered if he was gay or not. Which, in the long run, it doesn’t, of course. Great books are great books.

Although I’m still trying to master that part about about talking to strangers.

MORE EVIDENCE

  • “The trouble with life was, nobody ever got enough rehearsal.”
    — Dave speculates inSkinflick

UNDER OATH

  •  “After 40 years Hammett has a worthy successor…”
    — The Times (London)
  • “… the most exciting and effective writer of the classic California private eye novel working today”
    — The Los Angeles Times
  • “… (an) excellent craftsman, a compelling writer”
    — The New Yorker
  • “Hansen knows how to tell a tough, unsentimental, fast-moving story in an exceptionally urbane style”
    — The New York Times
  • “After Ross McDonald, what? The smart money is now on Joseph Hansen.”
    — The National Review
  • “The Brandstetter stories develop strongly with a striking quality of measured calm…”
    — Sunday Times
  • “The first thing I ever read by Joseph Hansen was Fadeout (1970). It’s the seminal novel in a mystery series about a smart, tough, uncompromising insurance investigator by the name of David Brandstetter. He is a Korean War vet and ruggedly masculine. He’s educated, principled, compassionate — but willing and able to use violence when nothing else works. He represents the (then) new breed of PI — the post–World War II private investigator. There are no bottles of rye in Dave’s desk, there are no sleazy secrets in his past, and the dames don’t much tend to throw themselves at him. He is neither tarnished nor afraid. Oh, and one other thing. He’s gay…. He was not the first gay detective to hit mainstream crime fiction, but he was the first normal gay detective, and that — as the poet said — has made all the difference.”
    — Josh Lanyon, from The Golden Age of Gay Fiction
  • “If you want a solid P.I. series that owes more to Hammett than Chandler, check out Joseph Hansen’s mighty Dave Brandstetter series. Yeah, Dave’s gay, but oh, the writing! Taut, tight & terse. And grown-up hard-boiled as hell, without a speck of cereal.”
    — Kevin Burton Smith (July 2018, Twitter)
  • “First published over fifty years ago now, Hansen’s novels are not just clever and compelling stories, but to my mind they are also a feat of incredible bravery. I wish I’d discovered him sooner.”
    — Russ Thomas (February 2021, CrimeReads)

NOVELS

SHORT STORIES

  • “Surf” (January 1976, Playguy)
  • “Election Day” (November 1984, EQMM)

COLLECTIONS

  • Brandstetter and Others” (1984) | Buy this book
    Includes both Brandstetter stories.
  • The Complete Brandstetter (2007) | Buy this book
    This already hard-to-find Brit import from No Exit finally collects ALL 12 novels.

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Respectfully submitted by Peter Walker. Additional material contributed by Kevin “Egg on His Face” Burton Smith. Oh, and Hansen eventually self-published Stubblefields Galore as The Cutbank Path.

Published

6 thoughts on “Dave Brandstetter”

  1. Hi Kevin,

    Seeing the Dave Brandstetter post in my Inbox this morning was a wonderful surprise. Through Josh Lanyon’s comments about him on her Goodreads site, I discovered Joseph Hansen/James Colton, and am so glad I did. I have all 12 DB books on my Kindle, and enjoyed every one. Just recently, I introduced a male friend to this series. He is listening to them on Audible and loving them too. Thanks for this lovely post, Kevin. Joseph Hansen was a true trail-blazer.

    Reply

    1. I should point out that much of this lovely post was written not by me, but by my good friend, Peter Walker, an early supporter of this site. In fact, I loaned him several of my copies of Hansen’s books because they were extremely difficult to find at the time in Liverpool.

      Reply

  4. I remember reading the first DB book in 1970. I was fairly new in the gay community, and other than Song Of The Loon, I had never read another gay themed book. I was hooked, and now have hundreds of them, and cannot stop. DB has always been my favorite, and I truly miss having new books to read.

    Reply

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