Forgotten Books: The Brat - Gil Brewer

Gil Brewer's 1958 Gold Medal novel THE BRAT begins where a lot of noir novels end: with murder, robbery, and the sympathetic but none too bright protagonist's realization of just how badly life and the femme fatale have screwed him. And from there it just gets worse for our narrator, St. Petersburg, Florida printer Lee Sullivan, who has let his beautiful wife Evis talk him into a scheme that includes robbing the savings and loan association where she works. But nobody was supposed to die, and Evis wasn't supposed to take the money and disappear, and Lee wasn't supposed to be framed for killing one of Evis's co-workers at the savings and loan. Too bad for Lee that's exactly what happens.

From there THE BRAT becomes a chase novel as Lee pursues Evis back to the Everglades, where her family still lives. He knows that he has to find her and recover the money to clear his name. Of course it's not that easy, as Lee has to deal with treachery on all sides, an ambitious and vengeful back country lawman, and a barely legal swamp girl who happens to be Evis's little sister lusting after him. That's a lot for anybody's plate.

As usual with a Gil Brewer novel, THE BRAT is permeated with sweaty desperation. Even though a lot of it takes place in broad daylight, an air of gloom hangs over the story, helped in large part by the feeling of being hemmed in by the swamp and all its myriad dangers. You never know what's going to happen in a Brewer novel, but you can count it being bad for the hero most of the time. His prose has such a headlong pace, though, that it's hard to stop reading.

This is a fine novel and a prime example of Gil Brewer's formidable storytelling prowess. I really enjoyed it. And you can, too, since there's an e-book edition available from Prologue Books if you don't have the original paperback. Either way, THE BRAT gets a high recommendation from me.

Prologue Books Western Authors

This morning on the Prologue Books website, I take a look at the Western authors they're publishing. Check it out.

Forgotten Books: Stacked Deck - Frank Kane

Frank Kane's private eye character Johnny Liddell began appearing in the detective pulps in the mid-Forties, but he became more well known as the star of a series of novels beginning with ABOUT FACE in 1947. A few of the Liddell novels were published in hardback, but most were paperback originals published by Dell, with fine covers by Robert McGinnis, Ron Lesser, and Victor Kalin. Kane has a reputation for being a generic writer who's a little too fond of punning titles and is also notorious for repeating descriptions, bits of business, and lines of dialogue from book to book. I'm not sure if this rises to the level of self-plagiarism (I'll address that issue later in this post), but I've read quite a few of Kane's books and found them pretty entertaining.

STACKED DECK is a collection of novelettes and short stories starring Johnny Liddell. There's no indication of where they originally appeared, but my guess is that they're from mystery digests such as MANHUNT, MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE, and THE SAINT MAGAZINE. I know Kane's work appeared in all of those places. Also, some of the stories appear to have been original to this collection.

"Dead Set", the opening story, finds Johnny far away from his usual stomping grounds in New York. He's in Hollywood untangling a case involving a beautiful starlet, a gossip columnist, some transplanted East Coast mobsters, blackmail, and murder. In "Dead Drunk", Johnny is back in New York working on an insurance fraud case in which a rival private eye is mixed up. "Dead Reckoning" is about Johnny protecting a sultry redheaded torch singer with a secret (a perfect part for Christina Hendricks) from a vicious mobster. "Dead Run" opens with Johnny looking down at a murder victim, a washed-up crooner and movie star who's trying to make a comeback, only to run into a bullet. "Dead Wrong", about a hit-and-run accident that may be murder, features Kane's attempt to write "beatnik" dialogue. It's way out, daddio. In "Dead End", motivated by the suicide of a beautiful blonde, Liddell goes after a pornography ring. "The Killing" concerns Liddell's efforts to prevent some gangsters from fixing a horse race. In "A Grave Matter!", a beautiful redheaded cigarette girl has already been murdered when the story opens, and Johnny has to find her killer.

I thought all of these stories were a lot of fun. Not classics of the genre, by any means, but for somebody like me who grew up reading hardboiled private eye stories (and watching private eye shows on TV), they're very enjoyable.

As for the self-plagiarism charges, I think some of it stems from the fact that Kane had certain phrases and bits of business that he liked to use again and again. Most prolific writers do that, I think. I've written so many Westerns I've probably written some paragraphs that are almost identical, purely by accident.

Kane does carry it to extremes now and then, though. In this collection, "Dead Wrong" and "A Grave Matter!" despite having completely different plots, have scenes that are almost word-for-word the same. I never would have noticed that, of course, if they hadn't been in the same collection. Some editor at Dell must have been dozing a little at the switch back in 1961.

That said, I really enjoyed STACKED DECK. An e-book edition is available from Prologue Books, and if you like good old-fashioned, two-fisted private eye yarns, I highly recommend it.

Don't Miss This Deal

You've probably seen mention of this elsewhere, but if you haven't, more than 100 great crime novels published by Prologue Books are on sale today. Orrie Hitt, Ed Lacy, Frank Kane, Henry Kane, Wade Miller, William Campbell Gault, Richard Deming, Talmage Powell . . . man, it doesn't get much better than this. Check it out!

Prologue Books Launches

Here's what I said about the new e-book publisher Prologue Books on their website:


Prologue Books is, in a word, spectacular. This is a treasure trove of the great authors who influenced several generations of writers and are still influencing them.  These books are some of the best examples of sheer storytelling power that you'll ever find.


I meant every word of it, too. I've bought several books already, and there's a good chance I'll buy everything they publish before I'm through. If you haven't checked out their website already, you really need to as soon as you can. Don't get me wrong, I love new books and new authors, too, but the books Prologue is bringing back really are the good old stuff.