A detective novel about AIDS
A nightmare world is exposed a world where
the fear of AIDS dominates all other concerns
and causes irrational behavior.
—
BY
S T A N L E Y
J O H N S O N
Enchanted Blue Wave Ltd.
“A Magical O ceanfront Retreat”
A Bed and Breakfast For W om en
Early Graves, by Joseph Hansen (The
Mysterious Press, 1987).
The
H
century; another gives the title to Erie Stanley
Gardner. And it may be that the prolific French
novelist, Georges Simenon — creator of
Inspector Maigret and author of more than 400
books — has been read by more people than any
other writer who ever lived.
One reason for the continuing popularity of
the detective novel lies in its adaptability — its
capacity to change with the times, to use its
classic puzzle-solving framework to accommo
date contemporary themes and even controver
sial subject matter.
One classic example is Rex Stout’s series of
novels with Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.
Over the years, from the ’30s to the ’70s, Stout
had Nero commenting on and reacting to all
kinds of public events, from income-tax raises
(he hated but tolerated them) to the publication
of the new Webster’s Dictionary with its
permissive attitude toward usage (he loathed it).
In one of the best of the series, The Doorbell
Rang, Nero took on the whole FBI — and won.
The detective novelist who today best exem
plifies the use of the mystery framework to deal
with public concerns is Joseph Hansen. The Los
Angeles-based novelist, in his series of nine
books about Dave Brandstetter, has incorporated
into his mystery plots such relevant modem
themes as corporate greed, toxic-waste spillage,
and Central American involvement. Now has
come a grim subject that had to be faced: AIDS.
The topic is integral to Hansen’s new novel.
Early Graves. It is introduced early in the book
when Brandstetter, an insurance investigator
who is gay, returns from a business trip to find a
young man in front of his Hollywood home,
stabbed to death. The man, though unknown to
Dave, is carrying his business card.
The crime is reported to Lt. Leppard of the
Los Angeles police; he immediately connects it
to a series of killings in the Los Angeles area: all
young men, all stabbed in the same way — and
all dying of AIDS.
The latest victim is soon identified as Drew
Dodge. Brandstetter did not know him, but
knew his reputation as a go-getting real estate
developer who had perhaps over-reached him
self to the extent that his financial empire was in
danger of collapsing. He had settled down in a
conventional marriage. Brandstetter's investi
gation reveals that he had also had a private gay
life which links him to the other serial killings.
Brandstetter shares his knowledge of the gay
world with Lt. Leppard as they investigate the
case together. It is a nightmare world that is
exposed — a world where the fear of AIDS
dominates all other concerns and causes irra
tional behavior. He finds a woman whose lover
left her when she tried to help her dying brother,
a crippled old black man who saw a family
disown their son with AIDS, a landlady who
sterilizes her whole house after an AIDS patient
leaves.
Unlike most detective novels. Early Graves
offers the solution — to one o f its plots, at least
— in the form o f a confessional letter from the
serial killer, who was himself a victim in many
The background is AIDS. It was a grim subject to
tackle, and not an easy one to fit into the frail
framework o f a mystery novel, but I felt that the
Brandstetters are the books o f mine that reach the
largest number o f readers, and I had to deal with
the topic there, rather than in one o f my main
stream novels, which almost no one reads. What
ever the odds against. I hope I’ve written a book
here that will replace fear and revulsion in its
readers with compassion and a desire to help. •
*
Experience the unusual
95590 Highway 101
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Winter Weekday Special — Three nights
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ways. It is a powerful document that tellingly
reveals the plight of the person with AIDS. The
young man, who is good at his job, is fired from
his programming position. The reason as
explained to him: “ Personnel says you have
AIDS. We have to protect the rest of the staff.
. . . If you don’t go, they will. We can’t afford
that. We also can’t affoni the group insurance
rates we’ll be slapped with if you stay. Would
that be fair to the others? ’ ’
It’s a situation in which everybody loses.
And so the boy, unnamed up to this point,
becomes a scapegoat, a sacrifice to his society’s
fears. A horrible retribution follows.
Even with this confession, however, the book
is not over, for Early Graves actually has two
plots, one superimposed on and intertwined
with the other. The confession solves the serial
killings, but not the initial murder with which
the book began. Brandstetter still has another
path to pursue into an old crime and a long-
delayed vendetta.
Early Graves follows Hansen’s usual pattern
of interweaving a murder investigation with
Dave Brandstetter’s private life. Readers of his
earlier novels, beginning with Fadeout and
Death Claims, will already be familiar with the
sympathetic treatment Hansen gives him. In
one early book his lover of many years died,
and he went through a period of shock and
withdrawal. He gradually began to re-establish
relationships, and now is going through a period
of adjustment with a new friend, Cecil Harris, a
young black newscaster.
In Early Graves, as in all the other books in
the series, the private concerns and the detec
tive plot are skillfully joined and become a
single entity with Brandstetter at the center.
Readers have already discovered that Brand
stetter is one of the most sympathetic and
admirable characters to emerge in recent
detective fiction. The most important thing
about him is not that he is gay, but that he is a
kind, thoughtful, concerned human being. He
has never been better than in this excellent new
novel.
Early Graves, then, is perhaps Hansen's best
example of the way in which detective fiction
can use an engrossing plot as a vehicle for
expressing concern on a serious social issue.
Read simply as a straightforward thriller, it
crackles with Hansen's usual tension and
suspense, as well as his keen observation of the
Los Angeles milieu, especially its sleazy under
side. Read at a deeper level, it wholly carries
out Hansen’s concern with shocking his readers
into a new awareness.
In describing the aim of his new book, the
author has made this statement about it:
t
See Vue
O cean V iew Rooms ■ O utdoor Spa
Fitness and G am e Rooms
istorians of popular culture have assured
us that the detective novel is the most
widely read literary form of the twentieth
century. One claimant has asserted that Agatha
Christie is the most popular author of the
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