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.

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.