A 1001 Midnights PI Review: STEPHEN GREENLEAF – Death Bed.

A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review by Marcia Muller STEPHEN GREENLEAF – Death Bed. John Marshall Tanner #2. Dial Press, hardcover, 1980. Ballantine,paperback, May 1982; Bantam, paperback December 1991. Stephen Greenleaf has received a great deal of critical acclaim for his novels featuring John Marshall Tanner. former lawyer turned private eye. Tanner’s territory is the San Francisco Bay Area, where his cases take him into the homes of the rich and powerful, as well as into the lowest dives in the city; the author draws heavily on his knowledge of politics, business, and local events to flesh out Tanner’s investigations. Greenleaf has been hailed as the successor to the Raymond Chandler/Ross Macdonald tradition, and it is easy to see why. Like Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer, Tanner is less a fully developed character than an observer. Hints are thrown out about his past and private life, but they are not elaborated upon, and frankly the reader doesn’t care. Greenleaf makes extensive use of…