Missing Bodies Under The California Sun

Fadeout by Joseph Hansen, University of Wisconsin/Terrace Books, paperback, 187 pp.
Death Claims by Joseph Hansen, University of Wisconsin/Terrace Books, paperback, 166 pp.

Before John Morgan Wilson's Benjamin Justice, Lev Raphael's Nick Hoffman, Mary Wings's Emma Victor, R. D. Zimmerman's Todd Mills, and Mark Richard Zubro's Paul Turner, there was Joseph Hansen's Dave Brandstetter, the very masculine, self-assured openly gay, highly cultured, middle-aged (!!!) claims investigator for the Medallion Life Insurance Company.

The University of Wisconsin Press/Terrace Books has reissued 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), which succinctly traces the origin of the pioneering detective series set in Southern California, featuring, notes Hansen's obituary in the Los Angeles Times, "the first major gay protagonist in the mystery genre."

At a time when detective fiction can run as long as 300 or 400 pages, both Hansen books number less than 200. In addition, the prose is so spare, the stories so fast-paced that it is possible to read them in a single sitting.

The books transport the reader to the early nineteen-seventies with references to hippies, the fuzz (the police), phonograph records, and hip huggers. And of course, there is the ever-present cigarette. What manly detective back then would be without one dangling between his lips? Hansen, however succeeds in keeping the books from becoming dated.

Both Fadeout and Death Claims involve missing persons (in the first book, it is the insured; in the second, the beneficiary). It's Brandstetter's task to locate the bodies, if there are any. Otherwise, the insurance company may have to write a fat check. This leads Brandstetter into a tangled web of lies, betrayal, multiple suspects, long-held secrets, and long simmering hatreds.

NOTE: My review of the Hansen books was originally assigned by Lisa C. Moore, the editor of the Lambda Book Report, in 2005. Publication of LBR was suspended indefinitely, so I offered it to the Gay & Lesbian Review, where it was published (in a slightly different version) in the September/October 2005 issue.