JOSEPH HANSEN

After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successorThe TimesDave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. Joseph Hansens groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.The Combat Zone is for men playing at war, with paint rather than bullets. But when a millionaires son is shot with a real gun, Dave is called in to find out if its more than an accident. The case takes him to a town with its own neo-Nazi militia - not the safest place for a gay PI; but then Dave has never figured his own safety much when hes on the tracks of a killer.

After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successorThe TimesDave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. Joseph Hansens groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and MacDonald.A father claims on his daughters life insurance - the girl is feared to be a victim of cultist and killer Azrael. But before the claim can be investigated, the man has disappeared - and Dave has to follow the clues through the canyons of LA to a truly terrifying climax.

After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successorThe TimesDave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. Joseph Hansens groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.A rundown harbour is due to be re-developed - against the wishes of those who call it home. When Mr Le, the businessman behind the project, is shot on his way to meet the residents spokesman, the culprit seems obvious. But then Dave is persuaded to take the case, and finds much more beneath the surface: forbidden love, deadly hatred, and most toxic of all, family honour.

After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successorThe TimesDave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. Joseph Hansens groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and MacDonald.Gerald Dawson was an angry man, a fundamentalist who wanted to rid the world of everything he feared and hated. So when he is found murdered, there are plenty of suspects: most obviously the owner of the pornshop he had repeatedly attacked. But Dave knows something doesnt add up, and as he travels from church to X-rated film set, from teenage prostitutes to upstanding preachers, he finds the trail leading somewhere altogether unexpected.

After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successorThe TimesDave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. Joseph Hansens groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.Dave returns home one morning to find an unknown dead man in his front yard, the latest victim of a serial killer targeting young men with AIDS. Why was he brought to Daves door? The hunt for the answer leads him from the country set to the downtown hustlers, along the dark byways of sex, suffering, grief and vengeance.

After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successorThe TimesDave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlow, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. Joseph Hansens groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.When foreign correspondent Adam Streeter is found shot dead, the police and his daughter both say suicide; but his life insurance company sends Dave in to check all the same. He soon realises that Adam was on the trail of a big story - so big that, as Dave digs deeper, he swiftly finds himself targeted by the same powerful and pitiless enemy.

After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successorThe TimesDave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. Joseph Hansens groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.After twenty-one years as an investigator, Dave is finally planning to retire. But first he is drawn into one final case: a tale of kidnapping and murder told by an abandoned boy. With the police unconvinced by the childs testimony, Dave must unravel a sordid story of drugs, jealousy and fraud before he can rest at last.

After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successorThe TimesDave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlow, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. Joseph Hansens groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.When Paul Myers truck goes off the road in flames, Dave is called in to investigate. Its no accident - someone stuck a bomb beneath the vehicle. But it seems like no one knows what Paul was hauling, or who he was working for, and the case will pit Dave against companies willing to kill to keep their dirty secrets.

After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successorThe TimesDave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. Joseph Hansens groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.Rick Wendell never made an enemy in his life, but he died all the same; and Larry Johns was found standing over him with the gun in his hand still smoking. Only Dave cant see it as an open-and-shut case - what was Johns motive? What happened to the cash Wendell withdrew that day? As his investigation progresses, he comes to realise the danger of assumptions, particularly where love and money are involved.

After forty years Hammett has a worthy successorThe TimesDave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlow Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them he was tough determined and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them he was gay. Joseph Hansens groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky passions run high and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.Police Chief Ben Orton swore hed keep big city vice out of his town. So no one is too surprised when he turns up dead - but Dave thinks pinning his murder on gay activist Cliff Kerlee is just a bit too convenient. His investigation uncovers a community cowed by one man and a police force with its own ideas of law and order.

The death of a Vietnamese immigrant brings former death claims investigator Dave Brandstetter out of retirement. As an insurance investigator, Dave Brandstetter built a reputation unraveling suspicious deaths. Now, well into middle age, he has decided to retire for the sake of Cecil, the young TV reporter who loves and cherishes him, and has too often risked his own life for Daves work. But retirement does not come easily. Dave never did it for the money. He always had that. Nor did he tirelessly work cases in hopes of chasing renown. It was always the pursuit of the truth that drove Dave. He enjoyed the truths habit of coming into direct conflict with bigotry, allowing him to surprise the small-minded along the way. It doesnt take much arm twisting, then, to get Dave back in the saddle when an old friend in the public defenders office asks him to help Andy Flanagan, a shiftless young man accused of murdering a Vietnamese businessman to defend the Old Fleet a shantytown of houseboats that has been earmarked for development. Beneath the surface of this oil-slicked slum lurks an international conspiracy so appalling that Dave will regret postponing his retirement.

Dave Brandstetters best days are behind him, but for the sake of a frightened child, Dave takes on his very last case. The wear and tear of a life spent pursuing the truth into harms way is catching up with Dave. In fact, it has already caught him. The aged death claims investigator is old enough for his body to hurt even without all the compiled injuries hes sustained throughout his career. Yet when presented with a puzzle-like mystery, Dave cant help but be drawn in. Walking on the beach, a friend finds a bedraggled child who claims he has witnessed a murder. The victim is a drug-addicted pop star, and the obvious suspect is the dead mans ex-girlfrienda drug addict whom the child saw standing over the body, gun in hand. In the final installment of Joseph Hansens groundbreaking series, Dave looks for justice once more, hoping that he will also find a lasting measure of peace. Over the course of twelve novels spanning four decades of American culturefrom the 1960s to the late 1980sJoseph Hansen gave readers one of the truly great heroes of detective fiction.

California teenager Alan Tarr, extraordinarily bright, has faced challenges in his short life: his father Eric, to whom he bears a striking resemblance ("small, and fair haired, and on the pretty side of handsome"), chose a career as a movie actor, rarely rising beyond bit parts. He lived a somewhat sordid life which ended suddenly when he fell off a balcony. Though his father was charismatic, he made a lot of enemies. One of his friends states: "Eric was a disease you dont recover from."Alan was raised by his mother, Babe, a scraping-by-at-best piano bar entertainer; Eric had abandoned the family when Alan was just six months old; the boy only knew his father from late movie reruns. Trying to connect, Alan heads to LA for the funeral, hitchhiking his only means, and falls in with a pack of hippie musicians; hes befriended by a young woman and her jealous boyfriend. Late for the funeral, he encounters the first of several in the LA agent/actor circle who knew his father intimately. And so begins a journey to learn about himself, his father, and uncover if the death was accident, suicide ... or murder.Much of the story is told in flashback: Alan begins his narration with two broken legs in heavy casts lying in a bed in a ramshackle beach house. Hes a sitting duck if there is a murderer out there waiting to finish him off.Hansen produced nearly 40 books including mainstream novels, including Backtrack, A Smile in His Lifetime, and Jobs Year from the early 1980s reissued in 2025 by ReQueered Tales. His best known work, the Dave Brandstetter series of mystery novels, pioneered the genre for the LGBT community."Joseph Hansen has written a brilliant piece. His characters are splendidly fleshed out." The New York Times Book Review"In the tradition of Chandler and Hammett, Joseph Hansen writes with gritty fluency of the sordid side of West Coast life." Washington Post Books"Hansens prose is lean: the dialogue relentlessly moves the story along and the novel teems with colorful characters." Stephen W. Breedlove"Backtrack is beautifully written with fully-realized (memorable) characters, exquisitely evoked mood, and biting humor." Drew Brainard"Backtrack is enriched by the judicious artistic effects that Hansen obtains through the use of his striking style." National Review

While investigating a suicide, Dave Brandstetter discovers a dead reporters final scoop. Journalist Adam Streeter covered some of the most dangerous stories of the last quarter century, ranging from Cambodia to Siberia and anywhere troubled in between. Fearless, dashing, and more than a little resourceful, Streeter was renowned as much for his virtuosic writing as the shocking reality of what he uncovered along the way. Why would someone who lived so purposefully and with such demonstrable bravery turn a pistol on himself? Insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter has seen enough suicides to know this isnt one. Suspecting treachery, he digs into Adams last story an unpublished investigation into the whereabouts of a vanished South American strongman, called El Carnicero, the Butcher and finds that Adams death shows every hallmark of his bloody style. Dave quickly realized that some very powerful people would like him to drop the case. Daves own lover, Cecil, would like to see him take it easy for once. But Cecil knows Brandstetter is not so unlike the man whose death hes investigating. The truth, to someone like Brandstetter or Streeter, is worth the ultimate price. As he attempts to finish Adams story and get to the bottom of the journalists death, Dave will find more than a few people willing to make him pay it.

After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successorThe TimesDave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. Joseph Hansens groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.John Oats is dead; drowned in the treacherous waves of the Pacific. But was it accident, suicide, or murder? Between the mysteriously absent son, the bitter ex-wife and the current lover, there are plenty of people with reason to lie to Dave about what really happened that night - and why.

After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successorThe TimesDave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. Joseph Hansens groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.In Fadeout, Dave is sent to investigate the death of radio personality Fox Olsen. His car is found crashed in a dry river bed. But there is no body - and as Dave looks deeper into his life, it seems as though he had good reasons to disappear.

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF DAVE BRANDSTETTERA cult leader named Azrael perpetrates a brutal mass murder and afterwards a slimy lawyer is trying to claim the life insurance policy for his missing daughter; its the early 80s in Los Angeles and private investigator Dave Brandstetter has a new love in his life as exciting as this case is dreadful. Two years ago Charles Westover disgraced himself and his family when he was disbarred for bribery. Westovers daughter Serenity, disgusted with her once beloved father, ran away to a cult founded by a mesmerizingly handsome young man, a self-appointed messiah going by the grimly grandiose name of Azrael. The whereabouts of Serenity pass unknown for years until the police raid Azraels compound and discover that the cult leader lived up to his ghastly Angel of Death moniker. Thinking his daughter has been murdered, Charles Westover claims her life insurance, and then he too vanishes. Insurance companies dont like to cut a check without a body and especially dont like cutting a check to someone who is also missing. Hired as a private investigator for Banner Insurance, David Brandstetter quickly finds himself in a complicated maze of lies and hidden histories. And Dave suspects that, just like in the labyrinths of old, there will be a monster at the end of it. Its not all bad times and extreme hazard for our man Dave. A passionate romance has entered his life with the reappearance of Cecil Harris, a handsome young African American investigative reporter for the local news station looking to get to the bottom of a different kind of story.

Dave Brandstetter, a California private investigator specializing in death claims, uncovers a toxic conspiracy while working a case in a neighborhood plagued by violence and inequality. Gifford Gardens has seen better days. As white families move away to the suburbs to flee the flooding and neglect, the city in turn cares less about fixing the problems. What was once a nice neighborhood has become a slum and a violent battleground for rival gangs. Paul and Angela Myers are among the white families that remained. With the economy in a downturn and wages frozen, Paul takes a job long-haul truck driving. The freight he moves around is strictly no questions, but Paul is an honest man and begins to wonder about what he has become a part of. One night, Pauls truck flies off a cliff and explodes in midair. Did he fall asleep at the wheel, or was he murdered? Pauls life insurance company hires renowned private investigator Dave Brandstetter to look at inconsistencies with the accident. While digging into Pauls past, Dave will uncover a haunting connection between Pauls untimely death and the happier years in the declining neighborhood of Gifford Gardens. Meanwhile Dave and his lover, reporter Cecil Harris, have settled in together quite cozily. Cecil has recovered from the injuries he received helping Dave on his previous case, but the psychological damage is still present. Dave cant help wondering if he will ever be able to protect Cecil from his dangerous line of work.

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF DAVE BRANDSTETTERDeath claims investigator Dave Brandstetter navigates the opposing realms of evangelical Christianity and the porn business while tracking a lost girl in late 1970s Los Angeles. Lon Tooker certainly fits the profile: big, strong, a Marine Corps veteran, and recently the target of evangelical crusader Gerald Dawsons wrath. Tookers adult toys and pornography store on the local skid row has recently become the target of Dawsons church mens group and their destructive masked raids on un-Christian businesses. When Dawson is strangled to death by someone of Tookers size and ability, the police see a smut-peddler with a motive. Case closed. But death claims investigator Dave Brandstetter doesnt like it. By all accounts Tooker is a softy incapable of such a crime. Actual evidence is nonexistent and assumptions many. And Dave particularly doesnt care for assumptions based on someones sex life. But Dave is also navigating new personal territory. His fathers death has left him bereaved and for the first time in a long time without a job. Dave quit the insurance company his father built and has struck out on his own as a private investigator. Add in his breakup with his recent partner and hes a man unencumbered. Its the late 1970s and Dave may be aging a bit but hes still handsome, wealthy, and recently in possession of a new convertible Triumph. Looks like its not all hard work.