Death Is a Lonely Business

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007)

This book-related article or section describes an aspect of the book in a primarily in-universe style.
Please rewrite this article or section to explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective.

Death Is a Lonely Business
First edition cover
Author	Ray Bradbury
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Mystery novel
Publisher	Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date	October 1985
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	278pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-394-54702-0 (first edition, hardback)
Followed by	A Graveyard for Lunatics

Death Is a Lonely Business is a mystery novel by Ray Bradbury published in 1985. The story, set in 1949, is about a series of murders that happen in Venice, California, then a declining seaside community in Los Angeles where Bradbury lived from 1942 to 1950. The main character and narrator (who never mentions his name) is a sensitive, modest writer, with a girlfriend studying in Mexico City. In the course of the story he meets Elmo Crumley, a detective who helps him solve the mystery behind all the semi-murders occurring among a series of eccentric characters in the forgotten town.

[edit] Plot introduction

According to the biography in the book, this was Ray Bradbury's first novel since the publication of Something Wicked This Way Comes (not counting the young adult novel The Halloween Tree). It deliberately^{[citation needed]} evokes both the milieu and style of other mystery writers Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Ross Macdonald, all of whom Bradbury names in the book's dedication, and James Crumley, after whom Bradbury named his detective. Yet the main character is undoubtedly Bradbury himself, portrayed in a period of his life just before his marriage and his success with The Martian Chronicles.

Two sequels followed: A Graveyard for Lunatics (1990), and Let's All Kill Constance (2003), advancing the writer's career to 1954 and 1960, respectively.