Down I Go by Ben Kerr

Down I Go by Ben Kerr
Popular Library 653,
Copyright 1955

Ben Kerr was one pseudonym used by hardboiled writer William Ard. Those similar with Ard know the author created two excellent 50s PIs that worked out of NYC, Timothy Dane (one of my favorites) and Johnny Stevens. He must of liked coming up with new tough sleuths, because he birthed another around the same time called Barney Glines. I read the second Glines novel that was published by Gold Medal, titled "Mine to Avenge" and remember liking it a lot. William Ard also dabbed in Westerns and started the Tom Buchanan series under the name of Jonas Ward. The series continued after Ard's early death, some were ghostwritten by Brian Garfield and William R. Cox. But I like William Ard's crime novels best and "Down I Go" is a fine one. No private dick story here, this one is about city corruption, sleazy vice, and an ex-cop looking for a bit of revenge.

"This dump, Bantle thought. This dirty, stinking, miserable little hole, with its grifters and gunsels, its homos and harlots-the cheating, lying, whoring lot of them. The dregs of a corrupt city, streaming into this sewer for their liquor and their lovemaking and their cheap thrills when the show begins."

Lou Bantle is one tough cookie. For a few weeks he's been employed as a floorman, keeping the peace in the roughest and most vile strip joint in Bay City. But there is more to Bantle than slugging out riotous patrons, he has a past. Lou Bantle was once an honest Bay City vice cop, but for the last three years he's been doing hard time. He was railroaded on a trumped-up charge, setup by Detective Charlie Josephs and a gold digger tramp. Bantle was fighting the city corruption and had to be put out of the way. The crooked Josephs wanted to move up in the profligacy that controls the city, so he made his play on Bantle. During the last three years, Josephs has been living large and is now captain of the precinct. Not heeding the warning to never return to Bay City, Bantle is back and looking to settle up with Josephs and the girl who framed him.

There's a steady stream of action in this one, including a descriptive brutal beating Lou Bantle receives from two dirty cops with saps. But Lou recovers quickly, because one of his first undertakings is to protect a girl named Rita Largo. She falls in love with the hardcase ex-cop, adding an extra burden for him when Josephs goes after her to get to Bantle. Bantle still has some old friends on the force that want to clean up the city and he learns that the State's Criminal Investigation Division is at work to sweep out the rats. But they need help from someone unconnected to them and recruit Lou Bantle. Bantle goes undercover for them, but he has to go it alone. (which suits him fine)

I really liked the dark, dingy atmosphere created in "Down I Go." William Ard puts us in a soiled and colorless world, where around every corner there are perverted peeping toms, hookers, dope heads, chiselers, and of course plenty of rogue cops. It's a dirty city and throughout the novel we are always reminded of that. As a main character, Lou Bantle is a monolith. He's aggressive, brawny, and hates all kinds of criminal vice. Nothing can hold him back. There are other things that stand out in this novel. One is Bantle's pursuit of the money-hungry dame that helped set him up and another is the almost insane obsession Charlie Josephs has to hunt down Bantle and kill him. Both I found very gripping and well written.

If you are a fan of William Ard's work, you will enjoy "Down I Go." No complaints from me on this one. I would of liked to seen a little more punch in the end, (not that it didn't have any gun action) and it's not a complaint, it's just that my personal taste would have preferred a touch more violence in the finale. But it takes nothing away from this excellent hardboiled crime novel from the 50s. Did William Ard ever write anything that was not first-rate? I don't believe so. At the young age of 38, cancer took William Ard. What a shame. In a short period of time, he authored an admirable bundle of wonderful noir crime novels. Who knows what other crime-ridden street cesspools, in need of being cleaned up, William Ard would have taken the reader to if he had lived to a ripe old age.

(If you ever have a chance to get your hands on one of Ard's Timothy Dane novels, treat yourself. You will be rewarded)

Fear's Justice by Marc Olden

Fear's Justice by Marc Olden
Villard Books, Copyright 1996

Back in the 70s I was hooked reading those numbered men's adventure/vigilante novels. One of the best (if not THE best) was a series titled "Narc" written by a guy named Robert Hawkes. It featured an America drug agent called John Bolt and I found the writing in these books heads above the others that were being pumped out at that time. I later discovered that Robert Hawkes was a pseudo for Marc Olden, who also was penning the excellent "Black Samurai" and "The Harker File" novels. In the 80s and 90s, Olden wrote high charged thrillers, some influenced by his interest in the Asian culture and martial arts. And in 1996 he delivered a knockout with "Fear's Justice," where a chastised NYC detective goes it alone against crooked cops and dirty city politics.

Detective Feargal "Fear" Meagher is a tough fat-assed mick, who doesn't care much for most minorities on the force or anywhere else in NYC. When his girl is slaughtered and the murder is pin on a Black vagrant, he smells a cover up. Meagher starts digging into it and because it's been known that he pocketed $25,000 from a drug pusher, the higher ups try to get him to lay off. Too late though, Meagher uncovers a group of SOB rogue cops that are moonlighting as contract killers. They call themselves the "Exchange Students" and their leader is Detective Schiafino, the husband of Meagher's girlfriend. Schiafino is one bad dude and wants to see Meagher suffer, violently and slowly. Schiafino is connected and has influence with the highest city officials, which puts a mighty squeeze on Meagher's investigations.

"In the outhouse of life," he said, "Schiafino's a splinter in your ass. The man didn't tell you anything you didn't already know. And forget this crap about sending you to prison. He wants to do you himself, and we both know why."

Even pinned down, Meagher is able to get through the cracks and finds an accomplice in his world of corruption. And then later we are left wondering if that was an accomplice after all. As in most Marc Olden novels there is a showdown and what I like about this one is that it is straightforward. Meagher settles it and walks away, as a reader I savored it and left well satisfied.

This one is what I call a novel that slams into you. Fast and raw, (in language and violence) it paints a bleak picture of NYC. We go down some of the filthiest streets and meet some of the most vile people that I have come across in a crime story. The dialogue is fresh noir, superior than any that I have seen in a post-pulp era novel. This is the best book that I have read in months. I'm thrilled that I picked it up.

I have to return to more of Marc Olden's novels.

The Night Watch by Thomas Walsh

The Night Watch by Thomas Walsh
Little, Brown and Company
Hardcover Ed., Copyright 1951

I love rogue cop stories. Whether the cop is a decent guy who turns bad or just a natural bad egg who uses his police authority for his own personal gain, the stories have a gritty social breach feel to them. The ones written in the 40s & 50s were always noirish, with dirty alleyways, lonely street lamps, and dark cold nights. I read short stories by Thomas Walsh, but never one of his novels. When I heard that the storyline of "The Night Watch" dealt with a "dirty" cop, I dug the novel out.

"So we get the truth now," Ahern said, narrowing his eyes tiredly. "What you really did it for. Not for me. For that money."

Originally serialized in the Saturday Evening Post, the novel starts with three detectives assigned to a stakeout job. Ritchie McCallister is the young clean honest one, who feels compelled to look after his partner Paddy Ahern. Ahern is an average cop, who has a habit of taking a nip from the bottle at times. Walter Sheridan is the third detective. He's a wise ass, who only looks out for himself. The stakeout is the apartment of a bank robber's wife. One night the robber returns, and Sheridan and Ahern nab him. The guy has the money with him, so Sheridan kills him making it look like self defense. He's really after the cash, and he convinces Ahern he's doing this to protect him. Sheridan throws the body along with the loot into the trunk, with plans to retrieve it after the night is over. Things go quickly wrong for Sheridan and after a failed attempt to silence a female witness, he ends up killing Ahern. The second half of the novel involves the manhunt for Sheridan. McCallister, distraught over Ahern's death and the attempt to kill an innocent girl, stalks Sheridan throughout the apartment development area with the assistance of other policemen. We get an efficient behind the scenes look at a 1950s police manhunt operation, as Sheridan becomes trapped. This portion of the novel is excellent and really builds up to an exciting ending. In the last hours, it's good vs. evil between McCallister and Sheridan. And in these stories the fate of the rogue cop is always known.

I liked the novel. It took a few pages for me to get the flow of Walsh's writing style, (especially the dialog) but I quickly adapted to it. With the exception of the first few introduction pages, the story takes place in one night. We go back and forth between the characters, getting each ones thoughts and actions. I liked the way this worked, it gave the novel a documentary feel. Sheridan is a guy you don't like from the start, but I wasn't expecting him to turn diabolical. McCallister is our detective hero and a romantic relationship develops between him and the girl. Ahern is the cop we feel sorry for, caught in an event that he never wanted. His death in the novel is extraordinarily written, and one of the best death scenes I read in a long time.

Although I read better rogue cop novels, this one is damn good. It was used as the basis for the 1954 film "Pushover," which starred Fred MacMurray and Kim Novak. Throughout his career, Thomas Walsh wrote a ton of short stories for mystery magazines. In 1950, he wrote his first novel "Nightmare in Manhattan" and won the Edgar for Best First Mystery Novel. His bibliography consists of eleven novels:

Nightmare in Manhattan (1950)
The Night Watch (1952)
The Dark Window (1956)
Dangerous Passenger (1959)
The Eye of the Needle (1961)
A Thief in the Night (1962)
To Hide A Rogue (1964)
The Tenth Point (1965)
The Resurrection Man (1966)
The Face of the Enemy (1966)
The Action of the Tiger (1968)



Bantam 1150
paperback edition

Night Cry by William L. Stuart

Night Cry by William L. Stuart
Avon 801, Copyright 1948

There is nothing like picking up a novel that you don't expect much out of and be blown away by it...

The barriers that had held his emotions broke and thoughts came flooding at him, released. They had escaped and now they would burrow and work, reappearing briefly and scuttlingly, like rats in an alley.

Hard-nosed cop Mark Deglin just got passed over for the big promotion, and has been carrying a chip on his shoulder since. Mark plays it tough and the press loves him. During a murder investigation he visits a possible suspect, war hero Ken Paine. He gets a little too rough with the guy and Deglin accidentally kills Paine. Immediately after he learns the guy had nothing to do with the murder. He covers up what he did by first disguising himself as Paine, then dumping the corpse in the river and make it look like the guy flew the coop. Paine can't be located, so the cops make it a missing persons case and guess who gets assigned to find him-Mark Deglin. Paine's girlfriend, the beautiful Morgan Taylor, gets involved in the story and she doesn't believe Paine vanished and left town. To insure he is not connected to the disappearance, Deglin comtemplates another murder; but morally weakened, he can't go through with it. Good police work by others lead to the body being found and Morgan is now the suspect in the Paine murder. Pitted with anxiety and hagridden, the weight is too much for Deglin. Unable to escape emotionally, he realizes he must do what is not in his nature-throw his cards in and make his final play.

This is classic crime fiction and contains everything that is great about the genre. Wonderfully written by William Stuart, with a dreary autumn NYC as the setting. The streets are dark and the pages are full of fog, rain, and shadows. From the precinct houses, to the drab bars, and with the stench of the riverfront warehouses in the air; we are rewarded with a psychological noir thriller that grabs you from page one.

After a moment, the body came out of the water, slowly, oily with viscous mud, the dirty water cascading back from its blanket shroud. Deglin felt his stomach revolt, and he caught the vomit in his mouth, held it and swallowed convulsively.

Mark Deglin descends down a nightmare journey, as Paine becomes a man who will not stay dead. Ken Paine remains one of the main characters throughout the story, even though he is killed in the first few pages. It's haunting, with the police searching the city for Paine, and the Morgan girl waiting for him to show up; while all along Deglin knows he's at the bottom of the Hudson. This, along with its noir atmosphere, brings an eerie element to the novel. What starts as a simple cover up, slowly torments Deglin to a point of anhedonia; which at the end, the burden of guilt becomes unbearable when he realizes he has fallen for Paine's girl. He can't let it continue, he must get out....

One of the best books I read this year!
( and it was written 60 years ago)

Of course this novel was so good that Hollywood grab it immediately and Otto Preminger produced and directed the film noir classic, "Where The Sidewalk Ends." (1950) Dana Andrews portrayed Mark Dixon (changed from Deglin) The film starts the same as the novel, but then curves a bit from there. (The film was excellent, but of course the plot in the book is superior)

In 1958, Kraft Television Theatre aired "Night Cry", with Jack Klugman as Mark Deglin. I don't know if this was more faithful to William Stuart's novel, I would love to see it sometime.

The Radio Program "Suspense" aired "Night Cry" on 10/07/1948, with Ray Milland as the rogue cop.

Dial Press, NY (1948) published the first edition in hardcover.

Paperback editions were published by Avon.
Avon 186 (1949)
Avon 597 (1954)
Avon 801 (1958)

Renegade Cop by Jonathan Craig

Renegade Cop by Jonathan Craig.
Berkley D2015, copyright 1954
(Original Title: "Alley Girl")

Jonathan Craig is best known for the Pete Selby-Stan Rayder detective series, published in the 50s by Gold Medal. Though most books from the series are good, Craig's best work came from two other novels. One being Gold Medal's " Come Night, Come Evil"-with an awesome cover, and the other is "Renegade Cop."

Detective-Lieutenant Steve Lambert is a tough cop. He also is a mean SOB. Right from the start, we find him waking up hungover and slapping around his girl. Lambert and his partner are investigating a murder and the prime suspect has been arrested, a young guy named Tommy Nolan. They go to Nolan's house to interview his nice, loyal, loving wife. Lambert goes in talking tough to Mrs. Nolan and is immediately attracted to the "natural feminine aroma of her young body." He tells Mrs. Nolan that, he can work it out to help her husband if she provides him with certain "private services." The chapter ends with her going to the bedroom saying "Let's get it over with."

As you can tell, not a nice guy. Lambert is offered five thousand dollars to forget about a girl seen running away from the murder scene. Instead of solving the murder, he sets out to frame Nolan for it. Lambert continues to lead Mrs. Nolan on, and keep the "private services" coming. He even taunts Tommy Nolan about what his wife is doing, saying "when her husband's in a cell, he isn't a heck of a lot of good to her." As Lambert gets deeper and deeper into the corruption, events get more intense. Others start to figure out what is going on, and- as for the fate of Steve Lambert.......

It's a fine hardboiled story and pretty raw for 1954. As a reader, I wanted to tear apart Steve Lambert. Craig was good at getting to the readers emotions. Psychological interaction between characters, descriptive character thoughts, slick dialog and a damn good plot. Craig doesn't hold back on this one.

As for the original title "Alley Girl," that refers to the girl seen running away from the scene of the murder. Which develops into an unusual, perverted twist at the end.