I've neglected some of the classic Gold Medal authors, reading only a few of their books over the years. Peter Rabe falls into that category. I'd read only one of his books, the first one in the Daniel Port series (the title escapes me at the moment), and I didn't much like it. So I decided to give him another try and read one of his best-known novels, THE BOX.
This book has an absolutely great, atmospheric opening. In a sleepy little desert town on the North African coast, a tramp steamer drops off a large wooden crate about the size of two coffins. Whatever is in the crate smells bad and is moving around, and when it's opened up, a man comes lunging out, a wild, half-crazy man who's been shut up in the box since the ship left New York. His name is Quinn, and he's a former mob lawyer who's been closed up in the box with enough food and water to keep him alive, then placed on the steamer as punishment for a falling out with the gangsters who used to be his associates.
That's not really a spoiler, because all of that back-story is spelled out on the back cover of the 1962 paperback, the cover of which, by Barye Phillips, accompanies this post.
Unfortunately, after that great opening, the book goes 'way downhill for me. The plot takes a nice twist or two, but meanders around so much on the way that I had a difficult time maintaining any interest in it. While undoubtedly well-written, Rabe's style is just too slow and literary for me, and the constant shifting around of point-of-view within scenes really annoyed me. Quite a few people whose opinions I trust really like Rabe's books, so I have to conclude that he's just one of those authors whose work doesn't appeal to me for some reason. Dan Cushman, who also wrote some Gold Medals, is the prime example of this sort of author. Considering what he writes about and his pulp background, I ought to love his stuff, but I had to struggle to finish the few books of his I read, and I finally gave up on him.
I'm not going to give up on Rabe. For one thing, I already own most of his books. But I don't think I'll be trying another one of his any time soon.
5 comments:
I really love ANATOMY OF A KILLER and liked KILL THE BOSS GOOD-BYE, but I had some trouble with the Stark House reprint, um, what's it's name, MURDER ME FOR NICKELS. I blamed the circumstances at the time (the kids behaved rather badly through the weekend and we were having a trip), but you never really know until you try again.
I confess that I liked The Box a lot when I read it, though that was a long time ago. I also like the three that Juri mentioned.
Yeah, the frequent point of view switching can be annoying, but if you can ignore it, I'd second Juri's opinion of ANATOMY OF A KILLER: my favourite Rabe by a distance. Although I have to confess that like Bill, I also liked THE BOX.
I loved "The Box" when I read it in Gorman, Greenberg and Pronzini's "Pure Pulp" anthology. "Kill the Boss Good-Bye" was less impressive. I thought the description on the back cover was better than the story inside.
I think I did a short review of "Good-Bye" in one of the issues of "Back Numbers". It was disappointing enough that I haven't gotten around to reading the other few Rabe books I've picked up.
I checked my shelves and found that ANATOMY OF A KILLER is one of the Rabe books that I don't have, so I guess I'll have to wait on reading it until I can scare up a copy.
Post a Comment