A groundbreaking, multi-part narrative about a plot to rob a racetrack on its busiest day of the year, using one criminal mastermind, and several o...
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reviews
Jan 05, 2010
David
rated it: 
Johnny Clay, just paroled, masterminds a complicated racetrack robbery. His inspiration is that he will work with men remarkable only for their desperation, not their criminal backgrounds. Thus, when the job is done, the cops will have no idea whom to suspect. Lionel White's third-person narrative shifts deftly among the parties involved, sometimes making small jumps backward in time. The characters are fairly flat, and the prose is there just to get the story told, but these shifts in persp
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Nov 05, 2009
Troy
rated it:
A con gets out of prison with a perfect plan. He's been working on it for years. He's not going to use cons or ex-cons, but normal folk. That's the beauty of it - they won't make the mistake a con would make. The plan is perfectly laid out. Everyone has their role. Everyone knows what to do.
The fun in this type of noir is how things will fall apart. Somewhere in the back of our minds, we hope that everything will go right, but we know that's not going to happen. What gets our pulse q More...
The fun in this type of noir is how things will fall apart. Somewhere in the back of our minds, we hope that everything will go right, but we know that's not going to happen. What gets our pulse q More...
May 17, 2009
Ben
rated it: 
It's easy to see why this was bought by Hollywood, it reads like it was written for the movies ... in a good way, i.e. streamlined and not much padding.
The women characters all take some pretty serious bruising in the book. Jim Thompson's screenplay for the Stanley Kubrick adaptation of this turgid little thriller eased up on the violence against women. Thompson must have been half-sober when he wrote it.
I love Lionel White's quote about being a professional writer, but I More...
The women characters all take some pretty serious bruising in the book. Jim Thompson's screenplay for the Stanley Kubrick adaptation of this turgid little thriller eased up on the violence against women. Thompson must have been half-sober when he wrote it.
I love Lionel White's quote about being a professional writer, but I More...
Mar 04, 2010
Jon
rated it:
another great pulp, better than the movie.
absolutely fantastic bit describing how to use a tommy gun in a heist.
absolutely fantastic bit describing how to use a tommy gun in a heist.
Nov 10, 2011
Danny
rated it:
An attempt at a page turner, this book definitely has a high pace and it's definitely a genre that suits me.
However, it somewhat fails at being mysterious and instead of using the opportunity and the plot to dwell into some characters, they remain quite one-dimensional and not particularly interesting.
This means that it ultimately is nothing but a fairly standard read, which will be sufficiently entertaining for people who like the genre, but presumably terribly unfruitful f More...
However, it somewhat fails at being mysterious and instead of using the opportunity and the plot to dwell into some characters, they remain quite one-dimensional and not particularly interesting.
This means that it ultimately is nothing but a fairly standard read, which will be sufficiently entertaining for people who like the genre, but presumably terribly unfruitful f More...
Dec 07, 2007
Parcuni
rated it:
Hardboiled, pulpy noir caper novel from 1955. Fast, fun read - nothing subtle about this one. Maybe not as artfully constructed as say, a Raymond Chandler novel, but glorious in its trashiness. Stanley Kubrick made the film, which is also good, but significantly different plot-wise if I recall.
Dec 03, 2007
Tosh
rated it: 
Like the film version by Kubrick of this novel this is a very taunt suspenseful novel about a racetrack heist. Books like this should not go out of print!
May 05, 2009
Joe
rated it:
One of the rare cases where the movie was better than the book. Hard to beat out a Jim Thompson screenplay with a Stanley Kubrik movie.
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