Bruce Von Stiers

Bill Pronzini is the author of the “Nameless Detective” series. Every once in a while he writes a novel that has nothing to do with that character. One such novel is Step To The Graveyard Easy. It was published by Walker & Company.

Matthew Cape is a salesman for a manufacturing company. His wife catches in their bed with another woman. Then Matt fastly moves to divest himself of his wife, his job and his current life. Is Matt having some kind of midlife crisis even though he’s only in his thirties?

Matt buys a used Corvette and takes off on a road trip. He travels to different towns and ends up in San Francisco. He meets Tanya and Boone Judson. They are brother and sister; at least that’s what they say. Boone invites Matt to a poker game that ends up being crooked. Matt gets the money back for himself and the other players that were scammed. And he also finds some photos of some people in the Tahoe area.

Matt is heading out that direction anyway, so he decides to warn the people in the photos that someone might be out to pull a scam on them.

Matt does some checking and finds out who the people in the pictures are. In trying to warn them, he gets involved in their lives. It is an uneasy situation that gets even worse when someone gets murdered.

Matt Cape is a tough guy in the tradition of old pulp fiction tales. He doesn’t take a lot of guff and is a lot tougher than you might think a manufacturing salesman might be. His nonchalant attitude is a little disconcerting until you find out why he is like that.

Step To The Graveyard Easy is not a very long book. It only has 165 pages. But those pages are filled with a lot of action. It is an entertaining story of violence and mischief.

You can find Step To The Graveyard Easy at book retailers. You can also order it through the Walker & Company web site. It can be found at www.walkerbooks.com.