Pete is called in to investigate the theft of ninety thousand dollars of jewels from Julia Boyd's room. Julia is married to Chalmers Boyd, a man who claims to be very influential in his home state of Maine. Due to Julia's obesity and her nervous condition, Chalmers has hired the enigmatic Doctor Bikel to attend to his wife's health. Chalmers tells Pete that there wasn't any theft and that Julia was having a spell, which leaves our hero confused and wanting to know more about this strange trio.
Down the hall from the Boyd's, Pete runs into Big Ben Barada and the former Mrs. Barada, Paula Norton, who is the blonde-haired, gray-eyed femme fatale of the story. When Pete hears Ben working Paula over, he uses his pass key to bust in and take Ben down...but our hero soon regrets this decision when Paula points a .25-caliber pistol in his kidneys and tells him to split. "Lady, in case you didn't notice, the guy was beating you up," Pete points out as he leaves. Soon, Paula calls Pete back to her room and explains that Barada wanted money, which she came to D.C. to pick up. When the house dick asks Paula how much money she's collecting, she responds with the shattering "Ninety thousand dollars."
And with more nuance than he's given credit for, Hunt draws you into House Dick and never lets you go. His prose is the epitome of hard boiled crime fiction, and the dialogue sounds exactly like the movies that were playing during that period. Pete is probably the best example of crime fiction's over-played stereotype: the smoking, drinking, tough-as-nails private eye, but Hunt uses this to his advantage and creates a detective who gets in over his head in something that he knows isn't going to end well. The really entertaining part is watching Novak struggle with himself as to what he should or shouldn't do and how far he'll go for Paula, or Julia, or any of the other characters in the book.
One of the more interesting aspects of House Dick was trying to place where I had heard Pete Novak's manner of speech before. His cadence was so familiar to me, and yet I couldn't place it until about the middle of the book, and then it hit me--Pete Novak sounded an awful lot like Humphrey Bogart, the infamous Sam Spade from The Maltese Falcon and Rick Blaine of Casablanca fame. And it wasn't just his speech pattern that drew me to this conclusion, either; it was the way Novak thought, the way he moved, the way he felt. Everything played out like he'd been modeled after Bogart, and once I started picturing Novak as Bogart, the book became twice as fun and ten times as enjoyable.
E. Howard Hunt may not be remembered by anything else but his involvement in Watergate for years to come. However, if you pick up a copy of House Dick (either the original or Dorchester Publishing's Hard Case Crime reprint), you'll find one of the greatest literary minds of the 1960's at work, and when he was at the top of his game. The book does not disappoint on any hardboiled level--the crime, the romance, the mystery, the intrigue, or the action. It's hard to find a book like that in these modern times, and even though this tome was written in 1961, I'd like you to pick up a copy, set the Wayback Machine to the old days (and for God's sake, leave Sherman behind), and sit in awe as a great detective, and a great writer, get to work.
--J.S.
Here's a review of another Dollar General find for $1.25 that kept me in suspense the whole time I was reading it. It's Madison Smartt Bell's Straight Cut, and my review of it is featured below.
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Reading about film editing, even for a film buff like me, is usually a recipe for a nice, long nap. But if you add a dash of hardboiled noir, drug smuggling, and one very troubled femme fatale into the mix, you have the combination to a very nice story that will hold my interest. Such was the case with Madison Smartt Bell's Straight Cut, one of Hard Case Crime's novel reprints from 1986.
In this book (which features a beautiful cover by Chuck Pyle), Bell weaves the tale of Tracy Bateman, a freelance film editor who's been living off the radar ever since his best friend and film producer, Kevin Carter, involved him in a production that used drug smuggling as its major source of fundraising. After one of their production staff is killed at the border trying to smuggle their "funds" back into the states, Tracy dropped out of the editing game and swore he would have no contact with Kevin ever again. However, certain circumstances place Tracy in a vulnerable position, and soon Kevin has him flying to Rome to edit a documentary about junkies recovering from their drug addictions.
What does all this have to do with the drug smuggling and hardboiled noir? I asked myself the same question several times throughout Straight Cut, and every time I did, some twist would occur that made my jaw drop. Such is the way Bell has written this novel--it's very hardboiled and very noir, but not in the stereotypical notions of the genre. Bell writes like he speaks, or that was my impression, which gives the prose a personal and close-to-the-vest sound. Then there's his imagery and nuance for detail in all the locations in the novel--Rome, Belgium, and New York City all seem vividly realized by someone who's obviously been there, heard both sides of every story, and has the scars to prove it.
But the further I dove into Straight Cut, the more I began to identify with Bell's hero, Tracy Bateman. His emotions over his predicament with Kevin and Lauren (his ex-wife and the femme fatale) became my emotions; his pain became my pain; and his anger became my anger. I've never been so drawn into a book and a set of characters as I was with this novel, and I doubt the experience will be replicated.
Bell has crafted a great piece of work here that will leave you stunned and feeling a little uneasy when you're finished. It's not exactly a happy story, but one that's complete, fully-fleshed out (a rarity these days), and firmly based in the realm of possibility. It will also make you feel like you got more than your money's worth, so if you can find a copy of Straight Cut, make sure you grab it--you won't be disappointed.
