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STAKEOUT ON PAGE STREET AND OTHER DKA FILES
by Joe Gores
Crippen & Landru, October 2000
182 pages
$16.00
ISBN: 1885941447


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Joe Gores was a real working private detective who became a writer of private detective stories. This collection of twelve "DKA" stories tells a lot of how he made the transition and tells realistic p.i. tales using a business that mainly does repos, skip traces - the meat and potatoes of most private detecting.

Those familiar with the "DKA" personnel will recognize all the familiar faces; Larry Ballard, talented Kathy Onoda, old-timer O'Bannon, smart and sassy Giselle Marc, the classy ex-fighter Bart Heslip, and of course, Dan Kearny, the baddest bluffer on the block. 

The DKA crowd chases after cars for their various bank clients, using sneakiness, good acting, playing peoples' fears and assumptions to gain the upper hand. Kearny can fake being a cop or a lawyer (there are rules against this but so what, right?) The folks they encounter are a wide range of lifestyles populating the streets of primarily '60s and '70s San Francisco - hippies and hep cats, gypsies and drug dealers, winners and losers.

This is a good sampler of solid, straightforward writing. Sometimes the DKA guys don't age well. I do find it a bit astonishing that Bart encounters "the N word" ass often as he does; I know all of San Francisco wasn't peace and love, but I seldom encountered that kind of thinking when I lived in the area. Truth to tell, I'm not all that thrilled with car repossessions as a way to make a living. But Gores does make it interesting; this is superior writing from someone who lived it.

Reviewed by Andi Shechter, November 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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