Early Graves

'After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successor' The Times

Dave 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 Hansen's 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 Dave's 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.