Milo Milodragovitch
Created by James Crumley

MILO MILODRAGOVITCH is an alcoholic, redneck good ol' boy sometime private eye who hails from Meriweather, Montana, with a taste for mind-altering substances, high-powered weaponry and a definitely non-linear approach to detective work. Gee, sounds a lot like Crumley's other Meriweather gumshoe, C.W. Sughrue. In fact, although they never appear in the same novel until 1996's Bordersnakes, they both frequently mention a former, nameless partner and now-and-then drinking buddy. It's not too hard a stretch to believe they're referring to each other here. And Crumley himself admits that C.W. and Milo "are friends, actually." (Winter 1994, TAD).

Still, there are differences. Both are veterans, but Milo did his time in Korea, whileSughrue did his stint in Vietnam. Sughrue was court-martialled for unintentionally killing an entire Vietnamese family. Where Milo is a basically a kind, generous guy, a bit smarter, a bit gentler, a bit less inclined to violence, Sughrue is pretty much an SOB with a bad case of the nasties, a loaded weapon with a natural-born mean streak. Crumley acknowledges, "Milo is my good side, Sughrue's the bad."

Crumley's books are among the most-respected private eye novels of the last twenty or so years and Crumley has earned a reputation as today's foremost writer of private-eye fiction. The Mexican Tree Duck, featuring Sughrue, received the 1994 Dashiell Hammett Award for Best Literary Crime Novel.

NOVELS

• The Wrong Case (1975) .Buy this book
• Dancing Bear (1983 .Buy this book
• Border Snakes (1996; also featuring C.W. Sughrue)...Buy this book
• The Final Country (2001) .Buy this book

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.