Too Many Girls by Don Tracy

Too Many Girls by Don Tracy
Berkley G-182
Copyright 1934

I had a hell of a headache when I woke up.

So starts this brilliant piece of noir fiction about the exploits of an unprincipled Baltimore newspaper photographer. The actual title (hardcover) is Round Trip, which really sums up the road Eddie Magruder goes down. And maybe the point of the first sentence is to inform the reader that the journey of Eddie was one hell of a headache for him but it's a pleasure for us because this one is special.

I forgot all about everything. For a couple of minutes I was back before I'd met Edith and this girl was a good looking pushover and my hands were inside the neck of her dress and giving her the works.

The novel starts with Eddie being sent out on an assignment to snap some photos from the aftermath of a lynching done by Eastern Longshoremen. Here is where we get our introduction of Eddie -tough youth, on is own as a teen, learning the ways of women from the streets, and consuming plenty of booze. The novel then turns into a flashback as Eddie tells us about the events in his life during the last few years. There is the suicide of a female newspaper reporter that he had final contact with and he seems indifferent about. Eddie has the moral nature of a heel with just a snip of compassion. He is willing to earn a few extra bucks taking "dirty"photos for distributors or receiving special favors from women for taking high quality shots so they can get public notice. But that changes when he meets and marries Edith. Eddie finally finds felicity and worth in his life. But the road he is given to go down, isn't level. In a fistfight, Eddie kills Edith's abusive ex-husband and he has to stand trial for manslaughter. It becomes an emotional ordeal for both Edith and Eddie. But after the acquittal, all the despair ends and there is a return to a life of contentment. Of course, Fate stacks the cards against a guy like Eddie and in the end it really crashes down on him.

I thought to myself that if they sent me up, I still had a hell of a lot to be glad about. I was a bum when I met Edith and now I wasn't a bum. I was up for killing a guy but I'd done it the right way.

Block out the meaningless title the paperback publishers gave this one, Round Trip is a monolithic hardboiled novel. In Eddie Magruder's world, happiness only gets touched, never embraced. He doesn't self-destruct or have ambitions that lead him down a wanton alley, Eddie is stuck and will forever be because guys like him are always destined to be lured up and knocked down. It's just the way life is....

James M. Cain wasn't the only one reshaping raw and gritty noir tales in the 30s. Don Tracy was also right there, he just never got the notoriety that Cain did. A fine example is Round Trip, this tragic novel stands pretty tall with what others were bring to the table at that time. With the exception of Edith's Ex-husband, there are really no evil people in the novel. Most are disillusioned souls lumbering in depression-era Americana and working for a niche in life. With Eddie being swallowed up in all of it. This novel predates Horace McCoy's They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and Gresham's Nightmare Alley and Richard Hallas' You Play the Black and the Red Comes Up, and I'd put Round Trip right up there with them.

A memorable novel. I won't forget this one.
It's one of the best that I've read.

Criss-Cross by Don Tracy

Criss-Cross by Don Tracy
Triangle Books, copyright 1934

Don Tracy sure titled this novel correctly. In it we have crosses, double crosses, and criss crosses of doubled crosses. All are interweaved within the relationships between the characters, which take them on a disastrous collision course.

He'd been smarter than me. All along I'd thought he was dumb and that I was giving him the big cross and now I was finding out that he knew all along and was just waiting to throw it into me. I was the dumb one. And I was paying for being dumb.

The story is about Johnny Thompson, who struggles to earn a decent buck during the 1930s depression era. Right now he's an ex-boxer with a flat nose working as an armored car delivery guard. His biggest problem is coming up with enough cash to take out the girl he is obsessed with, Anna. Anna loves money and the cushion life it brings. Johnny can't compete with Slim, an acquaintance of his who has plenty of dough usually obtained by shady dealings. Anna ends up marrying Slim for his money, which tears the guts out of Johnny. But the trio continues a "friendly" relationship, and Slim takes a liking to Johnny. Eventually Anna and Johnny play around behind Slim's back. Johnny knows he is being used by Anna, but he doesn't care just as long he can spend time with her. Slim offers Johnny a chance to make some big money, by being the inside man in robbing a payroll carried by his delivery truck. Johnny takes the offer and it chances his life, and the lives of Anna and Slim, forever.

"All woman are bitches," I said. She smiled at me. Her eyes were deep and black. "All woman are cheats and liars and bitches," I told her.
"I'm not," she said. "I'm a whore."
"You're different," I said. "I mean real women."

An excellent gritty, noir novel. The author gives us a inside look into the garbled mind of Johnny Thompson. He's a complex character, where at times you feel sorry for him and then you'll want to see him suffer for what he does. But I felt he suffered enough holding onto Anna. Anna is a gold-digger tramp and we have no sympathy for her. Slim is an interesting crook, who we can also feel sorry for and even like him at times-but he is basically a rat. After the payroll hold up attempt, Johnny's fate improves, but deep down he realizes it really doesn't.

Well written and sharp. I really enjoyed the novel and it's atmosphere of the struggling times of 1930s Baltimore. If you read it, you'll enjoy the numerous boxing references in the story-the author uses them to help define the character of Johnny Thompson. And the novel contains one of the great lines that I read recently:

A big girl in a white evening dress came out and sang "For All We Know" in a voice like a dentist's drill.

In 1951, Lion published the novel in paperback, titled "The Cheat."

And the novel was the basis for the excellent 1949 Burt Lancaster noir film "Criss Cross."