Bill Crider recommended Don Tracy’s second hardboiled novel CRISS-CROSS to me many years ago, and based on that, I hunted up a copy, put it on my shelves . . . and there it sat until the fire of ’08 got it, along with the rest of my books. Since then, I’ve thought many times about replacing it and, you know, actually reading it, but I hadn’t done so.
Until Staccato Crime, the Jazz Age Noir Classics imprint of Stark House,
reprinted it in a double volume along with Tracy’s first novel ROUND TRIP, which
I reviewed a couple of weeks ago. I took that as a sign than I should go ahead
and read CRISS-CROSS, and I’m glad I did.
Original Hardback Edition
This is probably Tracy’s most famous novel, no doubt because it was adapted
into a well-regarded movie starring Burt Lancaster. I’ve never seen the film,
but I might watch it sometime. Lancaster seems miscast to me as the novel’s
narrator/protagonist Johnny Thompson, a former boxer who works as a guard on an
armored car that carries payroll shipments in Baltimore. Johnny is in love with
beautiful blonde Anna, who marries local shady character Slim but carries on an
affair with Johnny, anyway. As if that’s not enough on Johnny’s plate, he has
to take care of his mother and his younger brother, who has a speech impediment
and is regarded as pretty dim-witted because of it, even though he’s actually
not.
Tracy sets all this up in the same flat, ultra-hardboiled prose he uses in
ROUND TRIP, and the style is just as effective here. Things heat up when Slim
recruits Johnny to be the inside man on a robbery of the armored car . . . but
is Slim actually setting him up to be knocked off because he’s discovered
Johnny’s affair with Anna?
Retitled Lion Books Paperback Reprint
Naturally, all kind of complications arise when the stick-up actually takes
place, as CRISS-CROSS is very much the model for the sort of noirish crime
novel that Gold Medal would publish twenty years later. Nothing is black and
white in this novel, it’s all shades of gray, and none of the characters are
all that likable, either, although you can’t help but root for Johnny despite
the fact that he’s pretty dense. Tracy’s style makes it all work, and the
action scenes are really good. I don’t think I’m quite as fond of this novel as
most reviewers, but I did like it and consider it well worth reading, both in its
own right and as a precursor of so many noir crime novels that came along
later. It’s available in both ebook and paperback editions and is a fine
addition to the Staccato Crime line.
4 comments:
I thought it was interesting that the final criss-cross is that the protagonist ends up alive--much to his chagrin. It's like the Graham Greene quote from end of the affair: "what did I do to you that you had to condemn me to life?" The same worthless, empty, condemned life is the fate of the protagonist of in Willeford's 'Pickup'. They try really hard to get killed. But they are condemned to live.
Nice summation, James. I liked Round Trip slightly more than Criss-Cross, but thoroughly enjoyed both. Thanks for writing up your take on them!
Bill, you've mentioned that fire before. If you don't mind me asking, how did it happen?
On January 29, 2008, there was a wildfire (origin never really determined) that came down the hill and through the field behind our place, at least 400 yards wide and with a 50 mph wind behind it, that got our house and my studio. I was home alone at the time, and the dogs and I got out but everything else was gone. If you read this post:
https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2008/01/disaster.html
and the next four or five posts, there's more about it, including some photos. There were wildfires all over North Texas that day, and we weren't the only ones to lose everything. If I remember right, something like a dozen houses burned down across the area. More than fourteen years later, when the humidity's low and the wind blows, we still watch for smoke and worry. Probably always will.
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