Review: Backfire - Charles L. Burgess

A while back, I read and enjoyed Charles Burgess’s novel THE OTHER WOMAN, which was published originally by Beacon Books in 1960 and reprinted last year by Stark House as part of their great Black Gat Books line. Burgess, a Florida author who specialized in writing articles for the true crime magazines, wrote only two novels, and his other one, BACKFIRE, was very rare, having been published only in Australia. Now the good folks at Stark House have tracked it down and reprinted it as well, along with Burgess’s only short story and a selection of his true crime yarns. I’ve just read BACKFIRE.

The novel’s protagonist is Martin Powers, about as normal and run-of-the-mill a guy as you could find. He’s a salesman for a cosmetics company and is recently married to a beautiful brunette named Angela. He has a pretty good life, he thinks—until somebody starts trying to kill him.

After several failed attempts on his life, Martin’s wife brings in the cops, in the person of a hulking detective named Sam Bannerman. Unfortunately, Bannerman doesn’t seem to be able to make any progress in finding out who wants Martin dead. So Martin figures if he wants to stay alive, he’d better do some investigating himself. He was adopted as a young child and knows very little about his background, so he decides that would be a good place to start. He proves to be a clever, dogged detective, too, and starts uncovering things. But will he arrive at the ultimate answer before his mysterious enemy knocks him off?

BACKFIRE is a well-constructed mystery/suspense novel that generates considerably urgency and kept me flipping the pages. I think Burgess revealed some key elements of the plot maybe a tad too early, but that didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the book. He keeps the central questions unanswered until late in the book and keeps tightening the screws on Martin until a satisfying climax.

Maybe due to Burgess’s background as a true crime author, there’s a strong sense of realism to this book, as well, a sense that the investigation really could have gone this way. There’s nothing flashy about the style, just straight-ahead storytelling, but in a story like this, that’s a very effective approach. I'm sorry Burgess didn't write more novels. I had a fine time reading BACKFIRE and give it a high recommendation. It’s available in e-book and trade paperback editions. I haven’t yet read the true crime articles that round out the book, but I intend to.