Bill Pronzini has distinguished himself as a prolific writer and as an anthologist with an encyclopedic knowledge of mystery and western fiction. He is especially adept at collaborating with others, having worked with at least seven writers on fiction and eight people as co-editors. Pronzini is perhaps best known as the creator of an enduring private detective who, despite being nameless, has a more complex personality than most of his fictional colleagues and is considered the detective embodiment of the ordinary American working man. Illustrating the dangers of categorization, Pronzini in an interview in the December 1998/January 1999 issue of Mystery News said, "I don't consider myself a hard-boiled writer," preferring to call what he writes "humanist crime fiction with an edge." Most critics and readers, however, think that Pronzini has created a character who fits the traditional Raymond Chandler hard-boiled mode: Although he is disgusted by sham, Nameless...