Over the years, Pronzini also wrote many short stories and novellas starring Nameless. A particularly great one was “The Worried Mother Job,” originally published in a 1996 short story collection called Spadework and then again in the July 1998 edition of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
The story begins with a worried mother coming into the private eye’s office because she’s concerned about her son. Nameless explains that he usually hates this kind of job because mothers are, by the very nature, hysterical and overprotective. Her son Brian is a grown man, but he has become withdrawn lately and chronically unemployed. She guilt-trips Nameless into taking the gig.
When Nameless visits the young man, he is shocked to meet the buxom and abusive Blonde living with the nice young guy. It’s clear that Brian is being manipulated by this foul-mouthed tart in some fashion, but Brian was unwilling to share candidly what was happening.
Like a dog with a bone, Nameless continues his search for truth, interviewing both friends and underworld characters. The structure of the story will be familiar to people who read a lot of private eye fiction, where our hero conducts a series of interviews that lead closer and closer to the truth.
The great thing about the story is the shocking twist ending when we find out what is actually happening to Brian. I sure didn’t see it coming, and I read a lot of these books and stories. It’s a fantastic twist. No spoilers here.
“The Worried Mother Job” cemented my desire to dive deeper into Pronzini’s vast catalog of books. The writing reminded me a lot of Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder series, which has sadly concluded. Maybe the Nameless Detective series will scratch that itch? Stay tuned.
Get the collection featuring this story HERE.
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