Bill Pronzini is a very good writer. This book was a good mystery and he kept me interested through the whole book. ( )

Review from Badelynge.
The Snatch is a very early Bill Pronzini novel from 1971 and the very first of his long running Nameless Detective series. And it's a very decent beginning. Pronzini may have been just starting out on his longer form career but he'd already gone some way to developing his skills through his short stories, this book being a reworking of one such. Don't be fooled by the pedestrian seeming set up to the plot, what looks like a routine kidnapping and ransom soon manages to throw a few curve balls. It's all cleanly written and constructed, playing to its pulp noir influences, the most commendable aspect being the character development of our unconventional hero. He's a very engaging character, a devotee to the pulps himself which engenders a neat homage within homage dynamic that blurs the boundaries between Pronzini himself and his nameless protagonist. Within the first few pages, Nameless has already compared someone to Doc Savage and greater props to the author for allowing an image of Lester Leith, Erle Stanley Gardener's crafty pulp creation, to jolt Nameless from a blue funk onto a hotter trail. Nameless's obsession with the pulps is a major aspect of the series, in this first book it highlights the cracks in his already crumbling and damaged relationship with his current girlfriend. Her judgement being," I want a man. Not a stubborn and self-deluding adolescent trying to live the life of a fictional hero." This isn't just fan fiction though, Pronzini just happens to be a very fine storyteller, mastering the art of hard-boiled dialogue and first person stream of consciousness that wouldn't sit uncomfortably next to the 30's pulp maestros both he and Nameless idolises. ( )

The NAMELESS DETECTIVE hires on to handle the ransom payoff in a kidnapping case. Financier Louis Martinetti doesn't trust the police to deal with the man who snatched his 9-year-old son from his military prep school, nor is it clear that he trusts the members of his own household. On the apointed evening, NAMELESS takes a briefcase that contains $300,000 in cash to a secluded loaction chosen by the kidnapper. Then all hell breaks loose.

http://lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com/2008/05/mysteries-and-snatch.html ( )

Nameless is hired to deliver the ransom in the kidnapping of a 9 year-old boy. The money disappears, the kidnapper is dead and Nameless is knifed in the stomach. Where is the boy? Who knew where to be to intercept the money? Is it an inside job? This is the first in the Nameless series. ( )