Troublemaker: A Dave Brandstetter Mystery

By Joseph Hansen

Book Overview

Love and money are the easy motives in the death of a California beachfront nightclub owner, but death claims investigator Dave Brandstetter is certain of one thing: the case is going to be far from easy and the police have it all wrong.

Rick Wendell wouldn't hurt a flea. The big, jovial owner of the Hang Ten, a surfing-themed gay bay on the boardwalk, was loved by regulars and new arrivals alike. But Rick was found naked and dead, with a local hustler named Larry Johns standing over him, smoking gun in hand. Wendell's death is ruled as a homicide and Johns is arrested. Everyone thinks it's a simple open-and-shut case. Everyone except the death claims investigator, Dave Brandstetter.

Brandstetter, a homosexual himself, doesn't make the same assumptions about the crime scene and easy story it tells. Larry Johns had enough time to escape had he wanted to. Not to mention Johns lacked any discernable motive, especially since the $200 in Wendell's wallet was left untouched. In an investigation that takes him from sun-scorched hillside ranches to seedy boardwalk bars, Brandstetter gets to the bottom of a twisty mystery in this hardboiled and entertaining portrait of the '70s gay culture by groundbreaking poet and award-winning crime writer Joseph Hansen.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805008128
• ISBN13: 9780805008128
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Length: 155 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.0" x 0.5" x 4.5"

Customer Reviews

Another fascinating Brandstetter mystery

In Troublemaker, the third of the Brandstetter mysteries, now familiar insurance claims investigator Dave Brandstetter is looking into the murder of the owner of a gay bar, or is perhaps suicide? As usual there is a long list of likely suspects in addition to the possibility that it is a suicide. To add a little glamour this time, running at the same time is an inter-bar contest with plenty of skimpily clad boy entrants, some of whom might or might not be involved in the case. The possibilities grow with the story right up to the end, when tension finally builds towards the dramatic closing pages as it becomes clear to Dave, and the reader, exactly what is going on. Dave's personal life, the other familiar and especially appealing aspect of the Brandsetter stories, continues to be developed, with his relationship with Doug seeming to be on a more even keel, although one wonders after the dramatic closing pages of Troublemaker whether things will still be OK between them. It will be interesting to see where that particular relationship is heading in the next story.

Who Done It

"Who killed gay bar owner and all-around nice guy Rick Wendell? Was it Larry Johns, the attractive young man found wiping his prints off the still smoking gun mere moments after the murder? If so, why was Johns naked? And what happened to the large sum of money Wendell had just withdrawn from the bar's bank account? Hard-boiled, openly gay insurance claims investigator Dave Brandstetter aims to find out in Troublemaker, the third volume in Joseph Hansen's legendary and critically acclaimed Brandstetter mystery series(...)