Burglar – David Goodis

Steeped in an unwritten honorary thieves’ code, DavidGoodis’ Burglar is a prime example of American noir of the 1950’s. Sitting parked in the dead of night, carefully smoking cigarettes, Nathan Harbin and his band of criminals, prepare a course of action that will unwittingly change the course of their life. Harbin, the brains of the operation, is the expert safe cracker that never carries a gun. Gladden, the only female and barely an adult herself, cases the house on the street and works as a temporary maid, getting the details where the valuables are kept in a wall safe. Baylock and Dohmer surround the house on either side with flashlights in hand to signal any disturbance or unusual activity approaching. Together, the team has managed a dozen hits, but something in the air on this particular night presents more tension than the other jobs.

Published in 1957, Burglar’s tension surmounts when a patrolling police car interrupts the heist. Fortunately, Harbin’s fast thinking in conjunction with the gang’s coolness prevents disaster. The cops are convinced of the cover story and leave the scene. In the course of the robbery, we learn the strengths and weaknesses of each of the key players. Harbin learned his trade by necessity. His mentor was none other than Gladden’s father, killed in a heist gone wrong. Since then, Harbin has taken responsibility of Gladden and lives by a code of ethics of this dead man. Gladden follows Harbin’s every move and there is more behind her willingness to follow him all the way to the life of crime. In Goodis’ world, the thieves’ code is predominantly a male oriented. The characters of Baylock and Dohmer represent this male universe resenting Gladden and finding her to be the weakest link in the gang. However, their animosity fades after a job and Gladden presents herself to the gang members as a more useful human being by making sandwiches and doing housework as opposed to an equal member of the gang.

This is where Goodis sets up the reader to go for a ride. Goodis flips the coin and presents two criminals that work as the villains in the piece. A femme fatale that breaks up the male dominated crime scene and is the exact opposite of Gladden’s character. Della uses her body to seduce Harbin and feigns love to get what she wants. Della works closely with Charley who is a crooked cop that’s ready for a shakedown. Together, they want to get their hands on those precious emeralds. The situation caused by the patrolling police that interrupted the heist at the beginning. Both Harbin and Gladden are sexually frustrated individuals. Not only does Della works on Harbin with her physical appearance, Charley works on Gladden with his physicality and feigned sensitivity. There’s a nice parallel happening between the key characters. It’s a mirrored world where two sides of the criminal underworld co-exist and conflict with each other.

The novel’s bleakness builds throughout each chapter and finally erupts into astonishing and brutal violence made even more shocking by Harbin’s ability to handle it with professional aplomb. For example, when a fatal shootout occurs outside of Nathan’s automobile, Nathan is able to keep his wits about him and dispose of weapons, vehicles, and bodies in a professional manner. The novel contains a coolness that reminds me of the films of Jean-Pierre Melville such as Le Samouraï or La Doulos.

Drowning in darkness, Harbin and Gladden find themselves at the end of the novel in the blackness of the ocean, which is an interesting metaphor for the entire novel. There’s no escape and it only gets darker and darker the further down you go. Burglar is quite a piece of noir fiction and I can’t think of any other crime author that paints in words a bleaker vision.

The author, predominantly known for Dark Passage (1946) adapted into a film version starring Humphrey Bogart, sued for copyright infringement over the TV series The Fugitive. Another celebrated French filmmaker, FrançoisTruffaut, adapted his novel Down There (1956) aka Shoot the Piano Player. Re-appraised and reprinted for the first time in fifty years, The Library of America published Five Noir Novels of the 1950’s in 2012 that includes The Burglar, Dark Passage, Nightfall, The Moon in the Gutter, and Street of No Return.

Tricks – Ed McBain

I’ve often cited on this very blog my preference for reading series novels in order of publication. However, I just violated my own rule and picked an 87^th Precinct novel at random. Well, not entirely at random, the premise of Halloween night in the Precinct seemed too tasty to resist browsing over the few McBain titles I own. One reason I felt comfortable jumping into the series is because I’ve always looked at the 87^th Precinct novels as self-standing episodic tales. Like many crime shows on television, it isn’t difficult to start watching in the middle of a season, or for that matter, in the middle of an episode, and picking up the story elements and running with them quickly deciphering what crime has happened and following along with the investigation. 

Master storyteller Ed McBain fills in plot elements with previous tidbits or character development pertaining to the previous 39 installments necessary to the plot without slowing down the action. In fact, it’s straight action all the way through and takes place in a single night in linear fashion. I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the 87^th Precinct having read Ax (1964) and having seen the movie Fuzz (1972) with Burt Reynolds. Again, the characters are easy to get a grasp on and the reader can follow along with the investigation. However, I think my appreciation will grow as I read more 87^th Precinct novels and become more familiar with the team’s interactions and humor. The book is full of humor and great crackling dialogue that at times reads like a screenplay.

True to its title, Tricks (1987) rattles off out of the gate with liquor stores robbery that ends with a manager gunned down by children in costumes. Could children possibly perform such an outrageous act or is someone pulling a Halloween trick? A murderer cuts up prostitutes picked up at the local dive bar in a neighboring precinct and a stakeout becomes organized. Eileen Burke is the plant in the uncover sting operation for the prostitute killer posing as a trick despite recovering from an attack on herself not that long ago. Cotton Hawes takes the call from a lovely magician’s assistant who’s searching for her missing husband, the Great Sabastiani that has mysteriously vanished after an afternoon matinee. Coincidentally, Sabastiani’s apprentice has left town in their van leaving all of their tricks and props scattered across a parking lot. Body parts are turning up in trashcans all over the city and a magician is missing. Do the body parts belong to the missing magician that has performed his very last trick?

Steve Carella, Andy Parker, and Arthur Brown also play major roles in this novel. Carella and Brown plan a stakeout of their own inside a liquor store with disastrous results. Andy Parker responds to the call of Peaches Muldoon, who was the mother of killer, now harassed by an obscene phone caller. Parker is eager to connect and romance Peaches, but stumbles on a little trick by pretending to be dressed as a plain-clothes cop at Halloween costume party and impresses all the guests with his authenticity and very real badge and gun. Strangely enough, a circus performer takes notice of Parker’s charm and Parker quickly has a little female admirer.

I don’t want to give away too many details, but the book’s layers weave into many story elements that intersect at various points of the different investigations. If police procedurals are your cup of tea, then the 87^TH Precinct will fill your kettle. Ed McBain was the pen name for Evan Hunter, who wrote the novel Blackboard Jungle, and most famously, the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. While close to fifty novels in the 87^th Precinct series, Hunter has another fifty novels under various pseudonyms including Evan Hunter and Hunt Collins. Hunter died in 2005 at the age of 78.

Fer-De-Lance – Rex Stout

Rex Stout is another American author with quite a prestigious bibliography. His novels top out in the seventies and span over six decades. His popularity is accounted by simply browsing his numerous titles in used bookstores that crowd the shelves ragged, worn, and dog-eared. Each paperback’s spine cracked in a million places resembling spidery varicose veins. Luckily, I found a copy of Stout’s first Nero Wolfe novel at a Goodwill store several months ago, that has waited patiently on my shelf for discovery.

Like most literary series, it is always best to start at the beginning. However, Fer-De-Lance drops the reader right into Wolfe’s world, as if several novels had already taken place. Already established as a great mind for detective work with several references of past triumphs and adventures, Wolfe is a practically larger than life character that enjoys his agoraphobic state while consuming copious amounts of beer and food. Comically, not only does Wolfe never leave the house he never varies his schedule even when clients come at his request. A designated rule is in place that prohibits entry in the upstairs greenhouse when Wolfe is brooding amongst his true friends, the plants.

Archie Goodwin represents the irritable body to Wolfe’s brain marching out on foot to do the investigating groundwork. Dutifully reporting all findings and feeding them into the brain, Archie comes across at times as a cocky smart ass, but manages to remain humble, respectable, and likable throughout the novel. Archie is at once at awe with Wolfe’s brain prowess and at the same time frustrated at feeling an outsider to his mentor’s working methods.

I found the duo a nice mirror to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes and Watson characters. Stout playfully makes Watson the brain and Holmes the documentarian since the novel is entirely from Archie Goodwin’s perspective. However, I can argue that Nero Wolfe is the amalgamation of Holmes and Watson’s brains combined and Goodwin is merely the commentator. The character comparison is a topic that’s well worth exploring in a larger format with ample research of seventy novels to read.

Goodwin, along with a few other tail-men and strong-arm types flex Wolfe’s grip on New York City’s underworld at the tail end of the depression. Although not destitute, money is tight, expenses are cut and extemporaneous help cut back. Goodwin is one of the few hired hands that manage to stay within Wolfe’s employment. When asked by one of Wolfe’s part-time tail-men as a favor to help his wife’s friend find her brother, Carlo Maffei, Wolfe devises a probable turn of events, which leads, of course, to murder stemming from only a brief interview from Maria Maffei. After finding a clue in a picture cut from the daily newspaper of a seemingly separate death by natural causes of a well-respected professor, Wolfe directs Archie to place a $10,000 bet with the District Attorney’s office that the professor died from a poisonous needle shot out of a golf club. Intrigued, but confused, as to how all of these events tie into the disappearance of Carlo Maffei, Archie is game for the work.

And that’s where it get’s good! Archie’s dispatched to interview the medical examiner, the district attorney, the family of the professor, golf caddies, and groundskeepers. A nice assembly of suspects gathers at the house, at his and Archie’s invitation, for interviews only on Wolfe’s designated time-schedule. All of Wolfe’s visitors have their patience tested by his stated genius, but its Archie’s frustration with the pace of genius that occasionally erupts into bickering spats that provide the comic relief of the novel. There is a substantial amount of zingers where I found myself chuckling aloud.

The resolution works well and includes a fiery plane crash. Yes, that $10,000 bet still stands at the end for Nero Wolfe to collect. To combat Wolfe, the suspect plants a surprise when a lethal snake pops out of a drawer, as it seems the best way to attack a man in his own castle. A tremendous amount of excitement for a book about a genius detective that is famous for never leaving his house!

Many authors I have known about peripherally for many years but I never bothered to read and I kick myself after I realize what I’ve been missing out on. It amazes that Rex Stout’s creations continue to live a life of their own almost 80 years after their creation. I will continue to explore Stout’s work as I find it. I don’t believe that reading each work in order is essential, but I will do my best to maintain a sense of continuity.