I like Berger, but there were too many racial epithets in the first 20 pages. ( )

Thomas Berger died on July 13, 2014. I had no idea, until a friend of mine and fellow-Berger-admirer emailed me. That it wasn’t a national story (like the deaths of other writers) is part of what keeps Berger’s fans in a state of constant disbelief. I had stumbled upon Sneaky People for the first time in the early 1990s. It was the first of Berger’s novels I had read and it led me to the rest of them, all 20 or so, my teaching a number of them at Rutgers, and a long correspondence with the great man. That I was rereading Sneaky People at the time of his death—and that a post-it on my computer reminded me to “write Berger”—are details that, had they appeared in novels, one might have dismissed as too cute and coincidental. But they’re true. Over time, Berger has sent me inscribed copies of his books and long replies to my letters, ones that included genuine conversation, as opposed to “Thank you for your inquiry,” etc.

Sneaky People is as good a place as any to begin with Berger. Published in 1975 but set in Berger’s beloved Midwest of the 1930s, it tells of used-car salesman Buddy Sandifer’s plan to have his wife killed so he can enjoy the fruits of is mistress without her constantly nagging him. Buddy is the worst of the lot, but there is plenty of sneakiness to go around. This is one of those books that, the less you know about it before picking it up, the better. There’s a laugh on every other page. Certain readers of the FDA-approval-camp should be warned that there are no delicacies here, and if you delight in being “offended” by the bad behavior of fictional creations, you should pick up something else.

Few contemporary writers are as good as Berger at having the narrator match the sensibilities and assumptions of the characters. Berger was so good at this; the vulgarity of his characters’ minds is reflected perfectly in the prose. His trademark pitch-perfect sentences appear on every other page. And Chapter 11, a thirty-page set piece detailing how Buddy’s mistress became a whore and the rest of her awful life, might be the best thing he ever wrote. As a short story, it could stand beside work by Cheever, Hemingway, or O’Connor.

David Mamet has a good essay about how much he enjoyed O’Brien’s Aubrey Martin series and how he sat down to write him a letter to tell him as much—when his wife showed him O’Brien’s obituary. Mamet told his wife, “This fellow has created characters and stories that are part of my life.” The same holds true for Berger and his readers. Even his lesser works (Best Friends, Suspects, Changing the Past) are never dull, and he only wrote two certifiable duds (Nowhere and Regiment of Women) out of 23. The triumphs of The Feud, Arthur Rex, Neighbors, Rinehart in Love more than make up for them. Thomas Berger, Great American Writer, R.I.P.
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This is an extremely funny novel that is strangely very warm and a wonderful snapshot of humanity and all that entails. At the same time, it is a hard-boiled noir mystery novel. This book was written in 1975, but the book is set in the 1930's. Berger's characterizations are extremely well-crafted. That is what makes this book so special. The main characters are Buddy Sandifer who is a fairly successful used car salesman who owns a thriving business in a small town. There is Buddy's fifteen year old son Ralph and is wife Naomi. Then of course there is the wonderful Laverne who is Buddy's mistress. Buddy is a rough and ready guy, but he is a warm and wonderful person in spite of the way he carries on with Laverne. The book is slyly funny and perfectly plotted. Berger was an author of some skill and a master of minimalist writing. I enjoyed the book. ( )

I came across mention of this novel in one of those Best Ever Crime and Mystery lists. I enjoy unearthing new authors and gave it a try.
This is definitely not a cosy mystery. Nor is it a conventional murder mystery solved by a clever detective. The anti-hero, Buddy Sandifer, is an arrogant hypocrite whose casual racism and sexism is jaw-dropping by modern standards. However Buddy lives in the 1930’s. Buddy is having an affair. Divorce in 1930’s America ain't so easy, and Buddy therefore decides to murder his long-suffering wife. On the face of it, this novel is about the events which follow.
However, as its title suggests, Sneaky People is actually a tale of calculations and miscalculations, jumping to a conclusion and getting it wrong. Pretty much no one in our tale is the person anybody else thinks they are; and it gets harder and harder to know who is pulling the wool over whose eyes.
It's crude and coarse in places, but it's also comic and compelling. I enjoyed it more than I expected to.

Nina Jon is the author of the newly released Magpie Murders, a series of short murder mysteries with a Cluedo-esque element.
She is also the author of the Jane Hetherington's Adventures in Detection crime and mystery series, about private detective Jane Hetherington. ( )

I flat out like Thomas Berger. He's a terrific writer with a built-in sense of social satire. I consider this his best.

The problem with Berger is that he was so prolific. He couldn't help himself--he had to write--and as a result some of his concoctions are so outlandish--invisible people, men who become women, accidental detectives--that it can test the credulity of a reader, who, if he or she is like me, will nonetheless suffer through the premises because there's always something brilliant to find. What's less forgivable are the books about downright nasty people, which I begin and soon put aside.

But Sneaky People, like The Feud, has Berger's socially redeeming teenagers living in a world of idiot or absurdly obsessive adults, which leavens the nastiness and turns dislikability into enjoyable, edifying farce. ( )