Dreamland

New York: Arbor House, 1983. First ed., first printing (full number line). 319 pages; 24 cm. Fine in about fine jacket in fine gently rubbed jacket with a few small spots. A very sharp copy. Now in archival mylar. Hardcover. ISBN: 0877954445 ((alk. paper)); 9780877954446 ((alk. paper)) LCCN: 83-70475

A California noir novel that opens in a drive-in, where a man named Crow sits sipping coffee and watching the pair who will pull him into the story. When bystanders are photographed witnessing a politician fleeing a sex party at which a death has occurred, Crow and his companion Reno set out after the killer. The case leads them into what the publisher calls the dark side of desire, and the novel builds to the violent burning of a mountain house. Beneath the thriller plot it is about parents and children, alliances forced by need, and immaturity giving way to responsibility. It was Thornburg's sixth novel, following To Die in California (1973), Cutter and Bone (1976, filmed as Cutter's Way), Black Angus, Valhalla and Beautiful Kate. It shares their disillusioned view of the American dream, and later readers have ranked it below Cutter and Bone while still admiring its hard, bleak prose.Suspense fiction. Fiction. Romans. Geographic: California -- Fiction. Californie -- Romans, nouvelles, etc. California