That's not pronounced "leveen", but rather rhymes with "that's divine".
Hmm...maybe that's too prissy for our private dick, Jack LeVine, but not necessarily. Under that bald melon and behind that big beezer is a sophisticated brain. Sure, he likes his poker and the Yankees, but he's no palooka. He appreciates the high brow stuff, and anyone who crack wise at the rate Jack does has more than a little bit between his ears.
The adventures of Jack LeVine, moderately successful private detective in New York City, take place in 1944, 1947 and 1950. The tough guy slang and lingo doesn't run so thick as to be silly, but Bergman employs it to good effect to set the time period. In point of fact, Bergman obviously did his homework because the time periods read very much as a slice of life from days gone by. The sharp writing takes you in the time machine and leads you thru a crisp, crackling tale with marvellous description and vibrant plots.
For a low-rent shamus, Jack LeVine gets mixed up in some extremely high-rent cases. Luckily, our hero has the moxie to bluff and bullshit his way through tight encounters, or dodge fast when his mouth fails him. Once he wipes off the sweat and catches his breath, then his brain is likewise up to the task of playing in those big leagues.
Other places on the web will give large or small synopses of the what LeVine faces, but they come across as spoilers to me. Each case starts out, as all these P.I. stories do, with quirky small potatoes stuff. A young dish wants Jack to recover some stag movies before the blackmail gets too hot. An old college chum pops out of the past to lure Jack to Hollywood to discover why the studio is dragging its heels on contract negotiations. A strange duck of a violinist reckons his boss has been replaced by a twin. All three expand and expand and before you realize it, those quirky small potatoes are now gigantic.
If a sharp visit to the classic private eye genre is up your dark alley, I heartily recommend all three.
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