Билл Пронзини - The Cemetery Man and Other Darkside Tales

Copyright information on previously published stories: All stories copyrighted in the name of the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust, except as noted.

“The Cemetery Man,” © 2013, first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

“Toiling in the Fields of the Lord,” © 2008, first published in Dago Red.

“Lines,” © 2012, first published in Cemetery Dance.

“McIntosh’s Chute,” © 1989, first published in New Frontiers 1.

“Trade Secret,” © 2011, first published in Damn Near Dead 2.

“Meadowlands Spike,” © 2011 by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini, first published in New Jersey Noir.

“Boobytrap,” © 1987, first published in Guilty as Charged.

“Confession,” © 2013, first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

“The Storm Tunnel,” © 1987, first published in Whispers.

“The Hanging Man,” © 1981, first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

“Putting the Pieces Back,” © 1976, first published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.

“Man Cave,” © 2011, first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

“ Angelique,” © 2010, first published in Horror Drive-In.

“Out of the Depths,” © 1994, first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

“Hooch,” © 2014, first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

“Just Looking,” © 2002, first published in Flesh and Blood: Dark Desires.

“What Happened to Mary?” © 2008, first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

“Caius,” © 2011 by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini, first published in Blood and Other Cravings.

“Breakbone,” © 2013, first published in Shivers VII.

When the writer F. Paul Wilson noted several years ago that private eye novels are snapshots of a certain era, I wondered immediately if he had Bill Pronzini’s Nameless Detective series in mind.

Unlike any other body of work in the genre, Nameless is a history of San Francisco and its environs over a period of five decades; a history of American culture from the time of the hippies through the new century when peace and love, brother, are not only forgotten but downright anathema to a country becoming more and more right-wing; and a fictional autobiography, if you will, of a detective who is very much like his creator. In fact, when Bill finally gave him a name, no one was surprised when it turned out to be “Bill.”

I began this introduction by alluding to the Nameless novels because they are not only the dominant part of Bill’s worldwide reputation, they also have a lot in common with the most neglected part of his work — his brilliant, urgent stand-alones. And the stand-alones have even more in common with Bill’s short stories.

“This land is populated by ‘sons of Cain,’ men doomed to walk alone. One of the major themes that comes from this is loneliness, or fear of apartness.”

Certainly there are times in the Nameless books when the mood of the detective fits the description above, but it is in such stand-alones as Blue Lonesome, A Wasteland of Strangers and The Crimes of Jordan Wise that Bill’s work begins to resonate with the same sense of doom as John Steinbeck’s, one of Bill’s favorite writers.

Three of the stories here have historical settings — “McIntosh’s Chute,” “The Hanging Man” and “Hooch.” The first two also show a particular kinship with Steinbeck’s work.

Bill’s early years were not unlike Steinbeck’s, young working-class man taking whatever jobs he could find while he wrote on the side:

“I haven’t held any other jobs since 1969. Before that: plumbing supply salesman, warehouseman, office typist, car-park attendant, part-time civilian guard for a U.S. marshal transporting federal prisoners from one lockup to another by car (sounds a lot more exciting than it was; mostly just boring road trips. But I did get one short story out of the experience).”

And so we come to the stories in this collection.

“What Happened to Mary?”

60 Minutes once ran a story about a town bully who became so much of a threat to everybody — including law enforcement — that he was mysteriously murdered. To say that the investigation into his death was sluggish and aimless would be to understate the matter. Bill has set many of his stories and not a few of his novels in small towns. He understands their rhythms and their rituals because he was born and raised in one.

Bill imparts a mythic quality to such places. You can imagine this story of a bully’s fate being passed down from generation to generation. While there are some mystery writers who long for literary acceptance, I think Bill’s best work has the kind of resonance and simple truth-telling that deserves it. And he achieves it without pretension.

Here the town is perfectly imagined and peopled. For all its external modernity, Ridgedale might well fit into an old Twilight Zone episode because in many respects it is no different than it was seventy or eighty years ago.

Few writers were as sensitive to nature as Steinbeck. You’ll find the same feelings in Bill’s work. Ridgedale “is all pine-covered hills, rolling meadows and streams full of fat trout.” It is untouched by condo builders and other developers. It has no McDonald’s.

All these facts contribute to the mythic quality I mentioned. A tale the town will never forget and neither will you.

“Toiling in the Fields of the Lord”

Forget Freddy Krueger, clever a concept as he is; forget the “Saw” movies, ugly as they are.

“Toiling” is a horror story of such finesse and strangeness that by its end it is as much a tone poem as a mordant depiction of madness. The specificity of the details remind me once again of Bill’s Steinbeckian connection with nature. Not only that, but the detail of the lifestyle itself, the migrant worker experience encapsulated with such precision and resonance.

No matter where you think this story is going, you’ll be wrong. This is the storyteller at his shrewd best. The finale bears on a profound aberration that speaks to true moral devastation.

This should have been nominated for both the Edgar and Bram Stoker awards.

“The Cemetery Man”

The title story, with the heft and ambience of a true crime story.

The concept is breathtaking and the voice and pace of the events are perfect.

Once again, a small town. Once again a sturdy, reliable small-town narrator.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a graveyard put to better use as a device for a story. Nor have I seen better use of an odd old man that children might be warned against but that adults might find interesting — as here.

This has the kind of dramatic arc that would have made it perfect — again — for The Twilight Zone. Or maybe the old thirty-minute Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Because this has parallels of a sort in the true-crime field, the ending here is particularly chilling.

“Breakbone”

I can’t decide if this would have been more at home in the old Manhunt magazine of the fifties or maybe as a storyline for the grimmest issue ever published of the often-banned EC Crime Comics.

Whew. This is one kick-ass story and the one-hundred-percent stuff of pure contaminated nightmare.