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By definition, you might think that an amoral protagonist might be less interesting, if only because you can't figure out what drives him or her. Jordan Wise intrigued me, and yet, I can't quite say why he did. He's never really given the back story that tells you why he would go this way and someone else wouldn't. But you know what, It doesn't matter a bit in this book. You don't need to know why Jordan Wise goes spectacularly off; sometimes we simply don't know. He didn't have a great upbringing but he wasn't raised by monsters. He's ordinary, he's average he's competent. That's not usually what makes someone decide to pull off a huge crime and disappear, but it's enough here. Because the crime is interesting, what happens is interesting through and through and because the author of the book is Bill Pronzini, a prodigious talent whose never hit the fame and fortune that many of us think he deserves. Pronzini tends to write, well, quiet books; he doesn't turn out blockbuster thrillers, he writes thrillers full of small intrigues, and ordinary people and completely plausible actions and real dialogue. Alas, that's often not enough to get attention. Jordan Wise, in his 30s, makes the mistake of falling in love, and the woman he falls in love with is , well, the kindest word is shallow. She doesn't love Jordan -- he's OK -- but she'll go with him if he makes a ton of money. It's 1977, when a half million dollars is a lot of money. And Jordan is an exceptionally skilled math geek who works at an accounting job in a San Francisco firm. He's been there so long, that his employers trust him. He's reliable, he's steady. Which makes him the perfect guy to pull off the embezzlement he pulls off. This is not giving anything away -- this book isn't so much a shocker as a puzzle. Boy meets, girl, boy steals money for girl, boy and girl disappear. And what happens then. Jordan, now known as Richard Laidlaw, didn't stop to think, didn't care or didn't know that a woman whose love (or whatever) can be bought, will probably seek bigger thrills, more money and won't be happy with the life that $500,000 could buy. And while Richard seems content, life catches up with him and the man we thought of as a smart, albeit criminal mastermind, turns into something else when he's threatened. And yet, what he becomes never seems to touch him. While much of what happens takes place in the pre-internet 70s, when identity theft was so much easier, when databases weren't accessible, you could fake a name on an airplane ticket and you could disappear relatively easily, that part of the book is still absorbing. The details of white collar type crime are always easier on me to read about. I tend not to care about calibers and blood spatters, but faking invoices and changing how you look in order to fool people, I find that engrossing. And it takes just enough time in the book so that the reader isn't ever bored. As does the life that Annalise and Richard have after they run off. I don't know if you're ever meant to relate to or feel for Richard; I mean he's not a monster, well, not really. Well, not at the start. He's sort of pathetic -- knowing that the only way to win the woman of his dreams is to, well what would you call it? To buy her favors with a pot of money. In the long run, Richard wants to relax and learn about sailing; it never occurred to him that Annalise would not be content with that. And his lack of knowledge, about her and about himself are somewhat bothersome. That's it? I don't get these folks, but I don't think the reader is meant to; do you truly want to understand a woman who is thrilled that a man risks prison to make her happy? Or to understand that man? In a way it was disappointing not to truly understand Richard/Jordan but, then, thinking about it, I don't know that I would want to know someone like him. As time goes on, he turns into someone who is still fascinating, but the life he has chosen causes him to make some tough, and then impossible decisions. I often find myself saying "if someone else had written this book, I would not have wanted to read it" because it takes true skills to create people like Jordan and Annalise and make me pay attention, make me care what happens to them. A while back, I read James Sallis' DRIVE, and thought the same thing: "These people are heartless, I don't understand them. So why are they so fascinating?" And I put it down to the talent of the author. While not a long book, THE CRIMES OF JORDAN WISE is well worth picking up and reading without stopping. There's never a false move; Pronzini's sense of pacing is as good as it gets and he reels you in. In someone else's hands, the story of an embezzler and his superficial companion would be dismal -- from Pronzini it's compelling, fast and, yes, sad. This is not a happy story where the good guys triumph, the bad guys are caught and justice is served. That would be way too easy.
Reviewed by Andi Shechter, April 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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