Wild Town – Jim Thompson

Way out west lives an oilman, Mike Hanlon, who manages prolonged success with a thriving hotel despite a debilitating injury that left him in a wheelchair. However, his aged years and wealthy heritage didn’t prevent him from marrying a trophy wife, twenty years his junior, named Joyce. The Hanlon Hotel resides in the jurisdiction of Sherriff Lou Ford, a questionably wealthy officer of the law who by all appearances lives on the grift. Enter the ex-convict drifter, Bugs McKenna, with an uncanny knack for being unable to stay out of trouble, who the Sheriff convinces to apply for the job of the hotel detective, and in turn, convinces Mike Hanlon to hire him. Bugs suspects the crooked Sheriff is up to no good and using an ex-convict as his patsy. Gather these elements together and you will find that the novel is the perfect recipe for criminal mischief.

Bugs McKenna begins his job as the hotel dick at the Hanlon Hotel trying to second-guess the motivations behind his employment. All signs point to Sheriff Ford and Joyce Hanlon working in conjunction to dispose of Mike Hanlon, so Joyce and Sheriff Ford can profit on Joyce’s inheritance and have a fall guy to take the wrap. Despite the obviousness of Ford’s motivations, Mike Hanlon’s motivations seem quite murky. Why does Mike Hanlon decide to trust McKenna? Does his boss realize that a plot is forming around his demise? It isn’t long before other trouble begins to brew at the hotel when $5000 goes missing from the books. The head accountant encourages Bugs to lean on the new accountant in order to save his own job.

Jim Thompson succeeds in taking the conventions of the crime story such as murder, blackmail, grifting, and double crosses and throws each one for a loop. I believe that Thompson’s goal is to keep the reader guessing at every turn and allow enough evidence to sustain a logical assumption of the direction of the story only to deliberately steer it onto a different track. Thompson’s personal sense of humor also matches the streak of black humor that runs throughout the story. For example, my favorite is the death of the hotel accountant, who’s accused in a subplot of stealing $5000, picks a fight with Bugs McKenna and accidentally flies out a window when Bugs dodges his lunge. Our anti-hero Bugs, is the embodiment of Murphy’s Law, if something can go wrong, it goes wrong and in quite a slapstick sort of way.

If it’s discovered that Bugs was in the accountant’s room, his unsavory reputation will jeopardize his safe position at the hotel. This causes him to panic and destroy evidence only later to realize that he couldn’t have been the only other person in the room. Suicide is ruled but quickly changed to murder as evidence of intoxicants in the accountant’s bloodstream turn up in an autopsy. The accountant would have died anyway, despite falling from the window. The Sheriff suspects a female as the culprit, as drugs, according to the Sheriff, are “a female’s weapon of choice.” Even after Bugs establishes his alibi away from the scene of the crime, a blackmailer emerges and puts the heat on him to pay $5000 or risk exposure as a suspect.

The novel takes another turn into quasi-detective fiction. McKenna, who’s hired as the hotel detective despite having no experience as a detective or in law enforcement, must solve the mystery of who is blackmailing him and, in turn, the murderer. The novel could easily fit into an amateur detective sub-genre, but it continues to morph and change styles. I don’t want give away all the twists and turns, but reading it is like listening to a great progressive rock album that shifts sounds and rhythms at will but always manages to impress at the skill of playing.

Wild Town doesn’t sit easily within any confined description of the crime sub-genres. It is all of those things at once and that’s what makes it so damned entertaining. Published in 1957, Wild Town rests comfortably between the more recognized publications of The Killer Inside Me, After Dark,My Sweet, and later publications such as The Getaway and Pop. 1280. I understand that Thompson’s recognition came only after his death, but it makes me question what the public considered great crime fiction at the time. As I’ve read several of his other works, I’m convinced that Thompson was an author that could always invert the crime genre and revitalize it. 

Forgive Me Killer – Harry Whittington

Harry Whittington’s reputation reigns as one of the proprietors of the paperback originals. As my education continues on vintage crime novels, I can begin to distinguish the shift from the pulps to the affordable paperback novels that exploded in the latter half of the 20^th century. Paperback first edition novels stemmed from publishers such as Fawcett GoldMedal, Signet, Bantam Books, Avon, and Ace. Authors such as John D. McDonald, David Rabe, and most importantly, Harry Whittington carved out a new avenue for the mystery crime genre, not to forget the western, science fiction, romance, or horror genres, to excel. By Whittington’s own account, his prolific output was out of necessity and eventually he was discouraged and quite writing for several years to work for the government, which paid regularly. His output is over 200 novels in various genres including the western. His pseudonyms include Robert Hart-Davis, Harry White, and Hallam Whitney to name a few.

Published in 1956, Forgive Me Killer follows corrupt police officer, Mike Ballard, called to prison to help clear a convicted and sentenced Earl Walker. In desperation, Walker mistakes Ballard’s indifference to his arraignment as compassion and believes that Ballard is a decent human being. Rejecting the plea for help, Ballard returns to work to find himself hit up for a loan by a fellow officer and under investigation with D.A. for his questionably wealthy lifestyle.

Ballard reports to and takes his cut from the local mob boss and club owner, Luxtro, whose hand is in each of the highest city officials’ pocket. Ballard demands that Luxtro pull his strings and have his investigation called off. Luxtro pays Ballard and additional amount of money and promises to look into the investigation, but warns him to lay low and not make any additional waves in the department. An investigation as serious as the one he’s facing is almost impossible to influence.

Meanwhile, convict Earl Walker’s wife, Peggy, pays Ballard a visit in attempt to convince him to clear her husband’s name. Frustrated with his girlfriend, Ballard’s selfish lust for Peggy prompts his agreement to help her imprisoned husband. Knowing that seducing Peggy won’t make a difference if her husband remains in prison, Ballard wants to win Peggy’s trust before he takes her to bed. Unfortunately, the more Ballard looks into Walker’s case the heavier the D.A.’s investigation comes down on him. Despite the hole that Ballard continues to dig, his lust drives him to discover the truth about Earl Walker’s conviction.

Forgive Me Killer’s brevity astonishes me due to the jam-packed story line that the novel tells efficiently. The characters are rich. Despite Ballard’s immoral lifestyle, he is a likeable protagonist that is capable of pulling the narrative through its story arc. Interestingly enough, here is a story that is quite familiar in this day and age of constant Law and Order and C.S.I. spin offs. This novel is still refreshing and tells a good crime story. That’s what’s important to me. My version is a reprint from 1984 published by Black Lizard.

I Wake Up Screaming by Steve Fisher

Steve Fisher’s I Wake Up Screaming (1940 and revised in 1960) is a novel that has been on my shelf for a while. I’ve always looked at it with a curiosity, but never felt compelled to peel it open and digest it. It contains all of my favorite elements in a good crime novel: lust, murder, mystery, and Hollywood. Therefore, the reasons for my disinterest in reading it sooner are a mystery to me! I finally solved that problem when I broke down and read it this year.

The Hollywood scene for a writer was quite different from that of an actor and Fisher’s story opens up the production offices of a Hollywood studio. Our young fresh writer attempts to engage with the lovely secretary, Vicky Lynn, who no one in the office seems able to crack open beyond the cordial work environment. He succeeds by proposing an opportunity to brainstorm on story ideas. In a reasonably short amount of time, he’s able to do the “impossible” when a romantic relationship is established; and gradually, a decision is made to convince his associates at the studio to back Vicky Lynn into becoming a silver-screen starlet. She’s then promptly run through the publicity machine and given a completely new identity including a “public” relationship with a leading man. Everyone seems obsessed with the manufactured Vicky Lynn. Jealously spirals out of control; and soon, she winds up dead in her apartment.

Suddenly, motives for her death start to turn up in the form of investments, insurance policies, rivals, and contemptuousness. Our protagonist avoids suspicion for the murder at first, but it isn’t long before a homicide detective, Ed Cornell, starts twisting the screws in his coffin. Ed Cornell’s obsession with pinning the murder on our narrator, regardless of the evidence, centers on revenge. Cornell demonstrates a very high level of fixation on, not only, solving the case, but on the avengement of Vicky Lynn. His reputation is on the line.

Cornell’s character is engaging enough despite the fact the detective angle plays out in the background. Most importantly, he’s never been wrong on a case. I can feel threads of James Ellroy’s L.A. Quartet universe. For example, The Black Dahlia’s character Bucky Bleichert and his obsession for Elizabeth Short after her death (Black Dahlia is also set in and around Hollywood in the 1940’s) and Captain Dudley Smith’s corrupt law enforcement style that is both wicked and immoral; and yet, manages to maintain a high-ranking position in a public office.

Considered one of the earliest examples of film noir the film version of I Wake Up Screaming (1941) starred Victor Mature. In the novel, written in the first person singular, I was unable to site a reference to the protagonist’s name; but in the movie, Mature plays the lead as Frankie Christopher. The novel’s bleak, downward spiraling plot does offer a point of redemption at the end. I’m not sure that I like the redemption angle, because it feels that a happy-ending tacked on, although, I was completely satisfied as a reader with the resolution of the mystery.