The Butterfly by James M. Cain

The Butterfly by James M. Cain
Signet 720, Copyright 1946

When I pick up one of Cain's novels, I expect a devious pull into a deceitful murder plot set in Southern California. But in this one we are taken to a coal mining region of West Virginia for a seductive backwoods noir tale that has plenty of family scheming, temptation, and hatred.

"He was eating beans out of a can with his knife, and I let him finish them up before I raised my gun. I drew my bead right on the butterfly. He doubled up when I pulled the trigger, and held on to his stomach, and kicked like a cat trying to shake papers off it's feet, and drew his breath in and out fast like a dog in the summer time, except instead of heat that made him do that, it was pain. That suit me fine. I stepped out, picked up his rifle from where he had set it down to eat, and sat down to watch him twitch."

After Jess Tyler's two-timing wife split on him 18 years ago, he seemed content just farming his land near the abandoned coal mines. That all changes when his 19 year old daughter Kady shows up one day and decides to stay for a spell. Well before you know it, both feel a little more passion between them than is usual between a father and daughter. But Jess is a Church-going-man and fights the temptation, even as Kady spews seduction over him. Things happen fast in this novel, Jess finds out that Kady has a illegitimate baby boy and it has been kidnapped by her stepfather. The boy gets returned as more members of Jess Tyler's family get involved. Kady plans to marry the baby boy's real father, but that goes sour. Then there is suspicion that the stepfather is the real father of Kady's boy. With incestuous lust still tempting Jess, he heads out to settle the score between him and the man who took away his wife years ago. But just about then, Jess learns something and that brings his relationship with Kady down a road towards sin and shame.

A swift story that is packaged with suspense, morality, and the forbidden topic of incest. Oh, and a murder along the way. Cain's writing (as always) is terrific in this novel. The characters burst from the pages, the plot has plenty of twists and offers a stark portrayal of hatred, lust, and even the passion of love. There is an intensity in this story and it builds and builds, then ends masterfully as Jess is writing down the tale of what happens.

It's safe to say, I never read anything that I didn't fully enjoy by James M. Cain. It's been a while since I read a backwoods noir novel and adding Cain as the author... this one is a "can't miss!"

Dame in Danger by Thomas B. Dewey

Dame in Danger by Thomas B. Dewey
Signet 1538, Copyright 1947

From 1947 until 1970, Thomas Dewey wrote 16 crime novels featuring the Chicago P.I. simply called Mac. Mac honed his detective skills working for the Chicago PD, until he got fired for shooting his mouth off to the commissioner. Since being a cop was all he knew, he got his private license with help from Lt. Donovan. Donovan is a hard veteran Homicide cop and he took Mac under his wing when Mac was on the force. The two remain close friends and throughout the novels they help one another during Mac's cases. "Dame in Danger" is Signet's seconding printing of Mac's first case. The original hardcover title is "Draw the Curtain Close" and in 1949 the first paperback (Signet 736) was printed with the original title. But I've always preferred this second paperback edition because of the sultry Robert Maguire cover.

They had just leaned over to pick up the corpse of Herman Losche when Donovan and I walked in. He looked even skinner and more moth-eaten dead than he had alive. There was a funny little twist to his lips, as if he'd been trying to figure out which was the bigger sucker, he or his murderer. I guessed it would probably come out even in the end.

The novel opens with Chicago's leading racketeer hiring Mac to keep an eye on his younger wife who may be in danger. Murders start quick in this one, as the racketeers bodyguard is killed delivering a package to Mac and then the cops find the racketeer himself murdered at his estate. The schooled puritan wife, Cynthia Warfield, becomes the prime suspect. Being a compassionate man, Mac believes she had nothing to do with the murder and hides her while he looks into things. A valuable family Bible and a stolen gem are at play here, and along for the ride are some ruthless tough guys and a redheaded bitch. The story gets complex as more murders mount up and a restrained sensual relationship develops between Cynthia and our P.I. As Mac battles through this one, he gets busted up a lot. Early on the hoods smack his face but good and he takes some serious slugs on the noggin all through the story. But he protects Cynthia, and has enough brain matter left to figure out why these murders are happening. And there is a pretty neat ending that takes place on the estate grounds, that is full of action.

I haven't found a Mac novel that I didn't enjoy. You'll find the early Mac stories more hardboiled than later ones. Authors were laying it down heavy on gunplay and rough stuff, during the time "Draw the Curtain Close" was written. Not long after, Thomas Dewey toned it down a bit and developed Mac into a formidable fictional character. The Mac character grew as the novels rolled on. He showed more sympathy and felt even pity for other characters, (good and bad) and with Mac being a more profound character the stories have more depth in the later novels. One of my favorites will always be "You've Got Him Cold." (1958) In the novel, we see Mac confronting his flaws, which causes some conflicts in how he interacts with others. Along with "The Mean Streets," (1954) it may be one of Dewey's most compelling mystery dramas. But don't overlook how the Chicago P.I. got started, his debut appearance is a damn good hard-knuckle detective story.

Thomas Dewey was a talented author who wrote many quality crime novels. But I lean to the Mac P.I. series, it contains his best work.

1st paperback edition of "Draw the Curtain Close"
Signet 736 (1949)

The Tough Guys by Mickey Spillane

The Tough Guys by Mickey Spillane
Signet T4141, Copyright 1969

“The Tough Guys” contain three Spillane short stories that came out in men’s magazines in the early sixties. All are solid Spillane high caliber yarns , with a guy ready to tackle injustice with violence, always with a clip in the gun and a broad by his side. The last two stories, "The Seven Year Kill" and “The Bastard Bannerman" are excellent, but the first "Kick It or Kill" is exceptional.

“You ever kill anybody?”
I slammed the door shut and looked at him. He was completely serious.
Finally I nodded. “Yes. Six people.”
“I didn’t mean in the war, son.”
“I wasn’t talking about the war.”
“How’d you do it?”
“I shot them,” I said and let the clutch out.

The story "Kick It or Kill" starts with a man called Kelly Smith from New York City, arriving in the Adirondack town of Pinewood. Smith is recuperation from an operation and his doctor recommended the mountain air would be good for him. But the off-season quiet town isn’t what it seems to be, and Smith quickly notices some high-level crime punks walking the streets. His outsider appearance becomes known and instead of a chance to relax, he willingly seeks to find out what is going on. He learns that a man named Simpson owns a highly-secured estate near the lake that is a haven for well-known members of organized crime. Local town girls have been known to be invited up there and later return mentally damaged and hooked on drugs. After tough guy Kelly Smith gets into a few altercations with some of the hoods, we find out he is recuperating from a gunshot wound. The wound causes more problems for him and he gets some assistance from the local doctor and a voluptuous hotel manager. Some town people suspect him of being a crook or a drug addict, but we find out he is actually a federal agent. The full-breasted hotel manager ends up caught at Simpson’s private compound and Kelly Smith, realizing he will get no help from the local law, must take quick action to rescue her. Alone, he heads out to the fortified estate with his .45 and enough piss in him to explode Simpson's operation wide open.

As you can tell Kelly Smith is like many of Spillane’s creations, he possesses a .45 and plays the game hard. Written in 1961, there is a Cuba, Russia, and drug connection in the story and we know how Spillane characters feel about commies and drugs. The story is short enough that the pace is swift with plenty of “bullets and broads” action. Marvelous hardboiled dialog from the start, as Kelly Smith steps off the train with an altitude; And possibly my favorite ending in a Spillane short story, with Kelly and his .45 inside Simpson’s compound.

I always said if you need to read something where the bastards “get theirs”, no one does it better than the Mick.
Top-notched stuff from the Master.
If you are looking for three fast and lean Mickey Spillane short stories in one book, this one has them.

One Lonely Night by Mickey Spillane

One Lonely Night by Mickey Spillane
Signet 888, Copyright 1951

Talk about classics....

"This time I wasn't dealing in murder, I was dealing in war!"

It's nice to be enlightened by a couple of guys who know more about pulp fiction than I. This was the only Mike Hammer novel that I haven't read in the past, and it turns out to be Spillane's best.

Ridiculed and judged, Mike bounces back with the understanding that the world needs men like him. Men who have to do what is needed and right, no matter what the wishes of society dictate. Great stuff by the great man-Commies, murder, broads and vengeance. This may be Mike Hammer at his most vicious and you go on the hunt with him all-the-way. From the haunting beginning; when he walks the bridge, tormented and chastised on that raining night. To the violent ending; when he understands who he is, what he has become, and why the world needs him. "I killed because I had to and I killed things that needed killing." It's a hell of a ride...

This is a fascinating dark, noir novel (not just another Mike Hammer story) and Mickey Spillane best work!!! I haven't read the Mike Hammer novels in many years, after finishing this one I plan to read again the first "classic six." (1947-1952)

"I laughed and laughed while I put the second clip in the gun. I went around the room and kicked them over on their backs, and if they had faces left I made sure they didn't."

The Erection Set by Mickey Spillane

The Erection Set by Mickey Spillane
Signet 5120, Copyright 1972

When I was in the U.S. Navy in the mid-70s, it seemed that wherever you went on the ship this paperback was laying around. Sailors being what they are, most of them were attracted to the paperback for the cover, the title, or both. Even though I read a few Mike Hammer and Tiger Mann novels prior, I was taken back at seeing Spillane’s name on “The Erection Set.” Well, somewhere probably in the Mediterranean Sea, I crawled in my rack and started it, and of course I’m glad I did. It’s was a true awakening.

Mickey Spillane brought this one up a big notch. He throws all into it and leaves little out. The main character, Dogeron Kelly, is possibly the toughest SOB in print. In fact he’s a bastard, but a "good guy" bastard. I have yet to find another character that comes close. It’s a violent story of a man with a secret past, out to make things right. Like the cab driver said looking at Kelly as they leave Kennedy Airport, “Shit, man, you’re loaded for bear.” Kelly has been away from New York City for a while, and returns to blow the town wide open. Bad guys beware! Strictly for the men of course. Was it controversial?-probably, I had no idea what the critics or Spillane fans thought of it at the time. And of course I didn’t care.

Almost like a magnet, I pick up this paperback every few years. Sometimes I read just a few choice pages and other times I’ll read it all. And I always thought it was just to bring back memories from a time when I was younger, careless, or remembering lonely days at sea. But of course I know that is not why, I read it because of one thing-the main character, Dogeron “Dog” Kelly. And thanks to the Mick, we have the original, ultimate, son-of-a-bitch, .45 packer, who do anything for the sake of justice….

“So I broke every finger on Bridey’s hands, too, then stitched him up the side of each cheek, so he’d never be invisible in a crowd again. I opened his belt, pulled his pants and shorts down, and waited the two minutes until he started to wake up, holding the point of the pick right over the two goodie sacs, and just as a groan wheezed through his lips and his eyes opened and rolled toward mine I drove the ice pick through those lumps of tissue into the rubber-tiled floor and the frenzied yell of horror he started never got past the sharp hiss of his sucked-in breath before he fainted.
The next person to go in that bathroom would do more than relieve his bladder or bowels.”

Of course later I had to read Mickey Spillane’s second “dirty little book” published a year later, “The Last Cop Out.” This I thought had the slightly better plot, with a similar type character in ex-cop Gillian “Gill” Burke. In this one Burke is asked to go up against a Mafia family alone. Violent and downright gross at times, but damn good. But Dog Kelly came first and left the impression that is forever etched upstairs.

Could these two novels be Mickey Spillane’s best pieces of work?
I believe so…

The Last Kill by Charlie Wells

The Last Kill by Charlie Wells.
Signet 1225, Copyright 1955.

One of my favorite paperback covers, by one of the great cover artist-Robert Maguire. Between the covers is a good hardboiled P.I. story.

Steve Lee is a southern PI, working out of Memphis. The book opens with Lee identifying for the cops, a murdered friend/stool pigeon of his in a muddy field. "...burn marks were made in the extremely tender flesh behind the knee. .45 slugs smashed through, obliterating his nose, so that now his face had that sunken-in look of a sun-bleached skull. I bent down, found more of those burn marks on his neck and chest. Sammie's last hours had been his roughest." Of course, since this was Lee's friend, he sets out to find who murdered him.

This is 50s hard-nosed crime fiction. And if you think you are reading something by Mickey Spillane, you might not be far off. Wells even states on the back cover that "Spillane decided I could write and worked with me for a whole year." Even the title sounds like something from Mickey. Steve Lee carries a .45 and uses it. Along the way he takes on the low-lifes, cases the joints, takes a sap to the skull, and does some good detective work. There are icepicks, torture, more killings and of course a couple of skirts-one blonde and one brunette.

Wells wrote in the first person, and uses the Spallane-ian dialog:
"She was dynamite and I wanted to light her fuse and see exactly what kind of explosion she'd make."

What Wells did well is create a gloomy, drab, dark atmosphere for the novel. Very noir-ish. The whole story takes place in rainy, cold weather and mostly at night. This compounds Steve Lee's cynical attitude, which enhances the story. These are the type of P.I. crime stories that made the 50's paperback era popular. They were successful for the publishers and gobbled up by the public. Once in a while you have to read one of these for nostalgic reasons.-This one does it.

As for Charlie Wells, he was born in the south and wrote one other novel that I know of- "Let The Night Cry." With another Maguire Cover.