Pronzini's by-the-numbers detective story is elevated by a passion that shines through every line.  The reason to love the Nameless Detective is that Pronzini loves him, and identifies with him, and can vividly see the world through his eyes.  The Nameless Detective, like Pronzini, loves the early detective pulps. Pronzini has certainly heard the critique of Nameless delivered by the woman Nameless loves - that it's all fake, that loving those old detective stories, like the one Nameless is in, is just a way of maintaining adolescence, the same way that Nameless' inability or refusal to quit smoking is stupid in the face of old age and infirmity.  

Even in the street-perfect descriptions of San Francisco, Pronzini shows us he loves this world and loves this guy, and so we fall in love with him too, and we want him to succeed at this, a lavish, lush, classic "rich family hires a down in the dumps private eye" pulp mystery.  Yet this is more than pastiche. Pronzini reaches for the sadness and shabbiness at the heart of those old stories.  Nameless doesn't get the girl, and the killer is pathetic, even though the ending is pitch perfect - a revelation you could slowly work out if you had time to think it through.  It's empathy that makes Nameless work here, and Pronzini excites it expertly.  

Fans sometimes don't make good writers (I know from personal attempts!)  We are too close to what we love to really put our arms around it. Pronzini is one of the rare exceptions.