UK readers might not have heard of Parnell Hall. This could be because he is an American author where some of his books are out of print and not available to buy in British bookshops. You can either buy his books from the likes of Amazon and The Book Depository in print or in ereader format. You can read about his past and current work by visiting his website. You can also email him with any questions and yes, he does reply and doesn't bite.
Client (Stanley Hastings #5) by Parnell Hall
Stanley Hastings is a New York PI. A Philip Marlow-like PI he is not. He is simply an ambulance chaser working for an accident law firm, signing retainers and taking photos of the accident scene. However, Hastings seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, bumping into murders, being interrogated by the police and he is the only person to get himself out of the mess. The book begins with Hastings admitting his bad teeth and with high dental prices, needs something to pay the bill. Enter Marvin Nickleson, an actual paying client who is asking Stanley to keep an eye on his wife, Monica Dorlander. Who thinks she is having an affair in her workplace. Suspicions arise where Nickleson would only contact Stanley at work at a certain time. Whilst juggling with his retainers and calls from the office. Hastings hunts down Monica to her workplace with one evening following her to an out of town motel. The next morning Monica is found dead in her motel room with Stanley being quizzed by the authorities once again as the number one suspect. On all of top of this, Nickleson does a runner and is nowhere to be seen, also the deceased is not all it seems.I was disappointed with the fourth book, Strangler I read last year. Simply it was mostly stuck in Richard Rosenberg's office and Stanley hardly had any interaction into solving the case. However, Client is an improvement and it goes back to the early books like Detective and Murder where Stanley has to prove his innocence to find the accused. Given the book was published in 1990, there are many cultural references. I especially loved the scene where Stanley and his son Tommie play the original The Legend of Zelda for the NES. The whole chapter is very accurate to the actual game and inspired Stanley to find a clue to prove his innocence. With it being 1990, there is a side story where his wife earns money via computing. In Stanley's eyes this is going over her head but he learns that Alice's IT skills plays a key part to capturing the killer. When the author gives Stanley Hastings the freedom of travelling across New York and beyond the story becomes entertaining. Like so in Client, Stanley ends up in Trenton and actually gets lost, but due to spoilers I cannot say how he ends up in Trenton. As with most books featuring private detectives, this is written from the first person. Unlike the Philip Marlowe series. The Stanley Hastings books are slightly humorous. Given the character tends to put himself down in the narrative, the reader will want him to achieve and to win.
I gave Client 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.
The Stanley Hastings books are a fun series to read. The books are only 250ish pages long and can be read in a few days. I will stress that Stanley is not one to keep his swearing under control and uses the f-word to express his stress. In addition, some murder scenes can be blood thirsty and grotesque, As the books were written and published throughout the 1980s and 1990s. I do suggest picturing them to when the book were originally published, as the cultural references makes sense to the time period it was written. Given the books in this series are mostly out of print, you can now purchase them for Amazon Kindle and e-readers for under £2.00. If you would like to try the first book, Detective, then you can purchase the Kindle version for only 49p. That's less than most national newspapers. I do suggest reading the books in order as Hall's narrative slowly introduces the major characters. From Alice and Tommie in Detective to homicide cop, Sergeant MacAullif in Murder.
Next to review: And a Puzzle to Die On (Puzzle Lady #6).
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