Never Live Twice

by Dan J. Marlowe

Book by Dan J. Marlowe

Genres: Noir, Crime, Novels, Mystery, Fiction

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

aka Albert Avellano, Jaime Sandaval, Gar Wilson (house name)

Dan J. Marlowe was a middle-aged businessman who, in the personal turmoil after the death of his wife of many years, decided to abandon his old life. He started writing, and his first novel was published when he was 45.

Marlowe's most famous book and his best-known character arrived from Fawcett Gold Medal Books in 1962 ("The Name of the Game Is Death").

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who Is Ted Blaine And What Was He Involved In?

Marlowe was one of the great pulp writers of the sixties. His stories are filled with hoods and ruthless bank robbers and Treasury agents and dirty capers. In this one, Marlowe threw in everything but the kitchen sink and then some. You have the pretty young wife and the drunken sod of a husband who she can't stand to spend another minute with and perhaps actually does something about it. You have a swampy, murderous small Southern town with all kinds of cheating and blackmailing and shenanigans. You have an amnesia victim in a sanitarium scheming how to get out. You have secret agents bent on outwitting nefarious characters. You have the demure librarian-type with a sadomasochistic bent. There's a high stakes poker game and a cat and mouse game. There's torture and gun battles and all kinds of desperate measures.

Marlowe took all these pieces and crafted a compelling pulp tale that is hard to put down. The only criticism is really that this isn't just one kind of pulp story, but several different kinds sort of mashed together. It's not purely a pretty murderess story or purely an amnesia tale or war story or poker story.

I happen however to really enjoy Marlowe's writing. His prose is easy to read and his stories seem to race forward at breakneck speed. He gives enough details to make things interesting but doesn't get bogged down in endless details.

In all, as with all of Marlowe's fiction, simply hands-down great entertainment.

[Carla Remy · Rating 4 out of 5]

11/2020

From 1964
For an amnesia story, this had terrific suspense to begin with. The reader knows that a man's wife and her brother think they killed him, making him drive into the water. But his body is no where to be found. Then it switches perspective, he wakes up with amnesia, thinking he's back in WWII. Not knowing what the reader knows. From here too many layers of plot weigh it down. They're all good but there are just too many of them. The action scenes are great though.

[Still · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing.

This eventually got off the ground and into the tough guy action 2/3rds of the way through. And for the final 50 pages from the end it’s pretty much a 1960s Men’s Adventure Magazine action saga. Nice payoff but a real let down after the 3 initial entries in the “Earl Drake” series.
Also… I must end this review with a whine.
I coulda done a whole helluva lot better without the breathless descriptions of how a real man handles a reluctant dame in the sack.
It didn’t help having Dan J. Marlowe’s biography with his bloated frog-face pasted on the cover setting face-up on a nearby desk while reading this.
Quite a ladies man, it claims. “…don’t know how he did it but he was a big hit with the ladies…”. I bet.
Him and everybody else but me.


—-

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not for the faint of heart or politically correct. I loved it. He's a tough guy who has been in tougher spots & survived them, but he carries a lot of scars. Some of these are slowly revealed. Even he isn't really sure what they all are, but he knows what he wants & - most importantly - what he doesn't want.

I started with the above because this is the old amnesia gag. That's so worn that I thought I'd hate it. Marlowe gave it new life with a complex character. In the beginning, I disliked, pitied, & hated him, sometimes all at once. Gradually, he & I got to know him & that changed. I believe the idea at the time (perhaps still) is that amnesia can be caused by physical trauma & not liking yourself much. This played perfectly with the character's growth throughout the novel.

Major spoiler:
I got the idea that he was a good man during the war who was tortured into insensibility & wound up with amnesia in low places with no means of support save his skills. He became a criminal's criminal & worked that into being a point man for a failed revolution, still a criminal, but in a better cause. Lacking direction, hating the mess he was in & his own failed nerve, his wife's attempted murder of him gave him amnesia yet again. This time he had a cleaner slate & the means to become a better person, which turned out - eventually - to be a pretty good one. It's tough to forgive him his rape of the doctor, but it was a horrific element that gave a lot of truth to his earlier behavior. He almost reverted to type, but managed to rise above it. Very well done, but I'm sure it will turn off a lot of readers completely. Very nasty indeed.

The other characters were well done, too. I'm going to read more by this author. I have Strongarm up next.

[Kurt Reichenbaugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool novel about an amnesia victim returning to life after more than 15 years. He discovers his life as a married man harbored some dark secrets and nasty enemies who just might not like to find him alive and kicking again. Marlowe was a good writer who can build a nice suspense scene, not to mention the random kinky sex scene as well. Bottoms up!

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marlowe (1916-84) is a hardboiled fiction master with a cult following. Welcome a new member to the cult! The Name of the Game Is Death and The Vengeance Man are generally acknowledged as the gems in his canon. He befriended the professional bank robber Al Nussbaum, and later they collaborated on some novels. Marlowe nailed an Edgar Award in 1971. He was also one of Gold Medal's stable of writers. Anyway, Never Live Twice is one of his sturdy but unremarkable efforts. The somewhat leaky plot involves a double persona and amnesia (the protagonist think it's 1945 when it's really 1964). There are lots of guns, poker, two gorgeous ladies, and the steamy, mucky Florida backcountry. I liked Marlowe's idiosyncratic prose style, wry humor, and the unusual twists even if they're improbable. If the plot doesn't add up, just ride the wave and enjoy the trip. That's what I did. Can't wait to try the other better known Marlowe titles.

[WJEP · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jack wakes-up and it's 19 years later. But unlike Rip Van Winkle, he hadn't been asleep. Somehow he was now a rich married flabby boozer named Ted with a menacing brother-in-law.

Bad stuff happens: rape, blackmail, sabotage, smuggling, espionage, Nazi torture, underhanded poker, an axe fight in the swamp, and a ship-to-ship shootout. But this mishmash was a bit too fanciful and convoluted.

[George K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating crime novel, with an amnesiac narrator trying to figure out what is going on with his life, why he remembers things from the distant past and how get hurt. Dan J. Marlowe is an absolutely master storyteller and this novel is a great example of his writing skills. The story is complicated, with mystery and adventure, the characters are interesting and the atmosphere a bit gritty and amazing. If you're looking for a good pulp fiction crime story, well, grab and read this unknown gem.

Ελληνικά:

"Τρόμος στους βάλτους", εκδόσεις Άγκυρα.

Έβδομο βιβλίο του Νταν Τζ. Μάρλοου που διαβάζω και έτσι όπως το πάω θα μου τελειώσουν πολύ γρήγορα και δεν θα ξέρω τι να κάνω μετά.

Πρόκειται για μια αυτοτελή ιστορία, η οποία ξεκινά με την απόπειρα δολοφονίας του πρωταγωνιστή μας, Τεντ Μπλέιν, από την όμορφη γυναίκα του και τον κουνιάδο του. Θα το έκαναν να φανεί σαν ατύχημα. Ο Μπλέιν ήταν ένα βήμα πριν (ή και μετά) από τον αλκοολισμό, έτσι τι πιο φυσικό αν τα είχε πιει, να ρίξει το αυτοκίνητο που οδηγούσε στο ποτάμι και να πνιγεί. Και τι πιο πειστικό, αν ήταν μαζί με την γυναίκα του, η οποία θα γλίτωνε κατά τύχη.

Το θέμα είναι ότι ο Μπλέιν επέζησε. Αλλά φαίνεται ότι χτύπησε το κεφάλι του κι έπαθε αμνησία. Βρέθηκε μακριά από το βυθισμένο αυτοκίνητο και νόμιζε ότι βρισκόταν... στην Κορέα, είκοσι χρόνια πριν, τότε που ήταν κατάσκοπος και έκανε διάφορες δουλειές. Μέχρι εδώ τα πράγματα είναι απλά, μετά μπερδεύονται για τα καλά, μιας και ο πρωταγωνιστής μας, πλέον, πάσχει από διπλή αμνησία (δικός μου όρος), έχει ξεχάσει την τωρινή ζωή, ένα διάστημα είκοσι χρόνων σχεδόν, από τότε που έκανε περίεργες δουλειές για την κυβέρνηση. Δεν θυμάται τίποτα από το τώρα.

Όμως με το πέρασμα των εβδομάδων θα επανέλθει, θ'αλλάξει εξωτερικά και θα γυρίσει σπίτι του. Τότε θα καταλάβει ότι ο κουνιάδος του κάνει κάποιες βρόμικες δουλειές, ότι η γυναίκα του επιχείρησε να τον στείλει στον άλλο κόσμο (όχι άδικα) και ότι η Ουάσινγκτον δεν ξεχνά τις υπηρεσίες του...

Αυτά. Ιδιαίτερα περίπλοκη ιστορία δεν είναι ακριβώς, αλλά δύσκολα μπορώ να γράψω μια κατατοπιστική περίληψη με αυτά που συμβαίνουν. Η πλοκή μου φάνηκε το λιγότερο ιντριγκαδόρικη, με αρκετό μυστήριο, μπόλικη δράση και δυνατές σκηνές βίας. Η γραφή φυσικά πολύ καλή, σίγουρη και χωρίς περιττές λεπτομέρειες, οι χαρακτήρες ενδιαφέροντες και η ατμόσφαιρα σούπερ. Στα συν ότι η ιστορία διαδραματιζόταν στην όμορφη Φλόριντα, με τους βάλτους, την υγρασία, τα επικίνδυνα νερά κλπ.

[Stephen J. Golds · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only just recently discovered the noir awesomeness that is Dan J. Marlowe. This guy is the epitome of noir and what a helluva writer.

Never Live Twice kicks off with seemingly traditional noir tropes. The beautiful, young femme fatale wife, the rich alcoholic husband and plans for a murder…

Then the novel does a twist completely out of left field and the reader finds themselves in a mash-up of The Bourne Identity and China Town.

While this novel isn’t as great as The Name of The Game is Death, it’s one damn good novel.

If you haven’t read any Dan J. Marlowe yet put him up on your TBR list ASAP!

[Brent Legault · Rating 1 out of 5]

A middling noir that is brought to its knees by some very gratuitous and skin-crawling sexist, non-sexy sex scenes. I'm not sure what sort of "reader" or rather what kind of 1960's scumbag this dime-novel was written for, but I hope, for the sake of our country and our planet and my own fragile sanity, that they are all dead from emphysema or cirrhosis by now.

[Gigli · Rating 4 out of 5]

»»» A compra:
Adquirida a versão portuguesa no Trade Stories, site de livros usados, pela capa, pela coleção (Rififi) e pela capa (não pedi ao grupo de Librarians para lançar esta versão porque não encontro imagem da capa, dado ser um livro antigo, e já não tenho paciência para andar à procura de uma série de dados que depois demoram uma eternidade a ser lançados por alguém que nem sabe do que se está a falar simplesmente porque foi proibido que em geral se lançassem edições no Goodreads).

»»» A aventura:
Numa noite chuvosa a esposa de um homem de sucesso participa no esquema que levará à morte do marido através de um despiste de carro.
Quando o carro se despista no rio ela consegue sair ilesa, como previsto, deixando para trás o marido no carro a afundar e dado por morto.
O corpo nunca é encontrado, mas mal ela sabe que o embate leva o marido a acordar de uma amnésia. Ele lembra-se que é um agente secreto e decide, então, voltar à sua agência e antiga casa, aproveitando que está dado como morto.
Para ele tudo da sua vida de agente aconteceu ontem, mas ao regressar verifica que passaram anos e que tinha sido dado como morto em campo pela agência.
Maior será a surpresa quando a agência sugere que regresse à sua atual casa e termine a missão que anos antes tinha sido iniciada, porque o esquema financeiro que estava a ser investigado ainda está em aberto e a sua atual mulher e amigos estão envolvidos.

»»» Sentimento final:
Muito bom.
A história é bem interessante e é empolgante, só não dou mais estrelas porque é um produto da sua época e a forma de tratar as mulheres pelo protagonista, até na linguagem, não são do meu gosto, acabando por diminuir o meu encantamento pela obra.

[Freddie the Know-it-all · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Moby Dick of the Only Even Prime Number

Moral of the story: only live some number of times not equal to the oddest prime number.

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

They had planned it all carefully, Louisa and her brother Kel. On a lonely dark road late at night, the car was ran into a canal, her husband Ted in the passenger seat. Pretended car trouble, a lump of sugar keep the throttle open, melting away once it hit the water, completed the picture.

After all, Ted was a lush, drinking himself into oblivion every single day. Her purse and one shoe left in the car, screaming at a car passing by after she jumped into the canal.

Foolproof.

Except when the car was towed from the water, the passenger door was open and no body could be found.

That's the brief prologue.

The rest of the book is told in first person, "Ted" waking up in the water, floating down the canal. He was not where he believed himself to be, not who he had been for years, and not even when he thought himself to be. There's forty pounds of flab on his gut.

He climbs ashore, beaten, with two broke ribs and a huge egg on his forehead. A wallet in his pants has business cards and a couple of credit cards that say Theodore Blaine. Why is he posing as this Theodore Blaine? Three thousand in cash as well. He buries everything but the cash and walks away from all the activity further back up the canal. He ends up being taken to a private hospital, at his own insistence.

There, he begins his recovery, beginning to work out. He refuses a psychiatrist, even though the young woman doctor says he'd been raving in the early days, speaking flawless Italian. The prognosis is amnesia and this is not the first time. he seems to have had another bout somewhere in his past.

He soon learns it's 1964, but he has no memory beyond 1945, and he calls a contact number from the old memory, not really expecting it to be good, surprised when somebody shows up.

From him, he learns Jack-Rabbit Smith was thought dead in the latter days of WWII, He'd disappeared while ferrying a fortune in Lire across Italy.

Eight years before, he'd showed up in Port Dunbar, Florida with plenty of money, married Louisa two years later, and began investing in local businesses. Just two years before, he'd suddenly turned into a lush, drinking a fifth a day every day.

Here's where it gets interesting. His old bosses, most of them dead or retired and replaced by younger men, are looking into dealings in his area of Florida. Two of the three are businesses he's invested in. And one of those is his brother-in-law.

They want him to be their inside man. He's not interested and they promise him no backing and not to take things into his own hands.

Suddenly, as the old saying goes, he's between a rock and a hard place. These businesses he'd put money into had planned on the happy lush not paying attention to their doings and they are some hard men.

What are they up to?

Jack-Ted's problem is he likes this new rich life he was living. He's got to learn it all over, the prognosis is that he will never remember the life of Ted Blaine. He begins a new relationship with his wife. he's pretty much the man she once married. Her brother and his associates think he's suddenly out to get them. He can't plan on much help from the old days.

And his biggest problem is, in his mind, he's a young man, but his body is nineteen years older. He's lost a lot of weight, but after years of neglect, he's not in optimum shape.

Liked this one.

[Bonobro · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book on the street. The cover has nothing to do with the story line. The story line is all spies and intrigue and manly men and vixon-y/manipulatable women. It's not even brain candy; it's like one of those middle no-man's-land channels on late-night TV that you only watch when you come home too drunk to go to sleep. That is to say, not too bad, but it's no Lost, either.