What do you think?
Machine a Decoudre
184pages. poche. Cartonné.
224 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1954
About the author
Gil Brewer
129 books60 followersFlorida writer Gil Brewer was the author of dozens of wonderfully sleazy sex/crime adventure novels of the 1950's and 60's, including Backwoods Teaser and Nude on Thin Ice; some of them starring private eye Lee Baron (Wild) or the brothers Sam and Tate Morgan (The Bitch) . Gil Brewer, who had not previously published any novels, began to write for Gold Medal Paperbacks in 1950-51. Brewer wrote some 30 novels between 1951 and the late 60s – very often involving an ordinary man who becomes involved with, and is often corrupted and destroyed by, an evil or designing woman. His style is simple and direct, with sharp dialogue, often achieving considerable intensity.
Brewer was one of the many writers who ghost wrote under the Ellery Queen byline as well. Brewer also was known as Eric Fitzgerald, Bailey Morgan, and Elaine Evans.
http://www.gilbrewer.com/
Brewer was one of the many writers who ghost wrote under the Ellery Queen byline as well. Brewer also was known as Eric Fitzgerald, Bailey Morgan, and Elaine Evans.
http://www.gilbrewer.com/
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
September 5, 2020
09/2020
From 1954
I really love speed and suspense. That's why I read books like this. Nothing is shorter and faster than these newsstand paperback original novels. I also love bloody murder, so this book was delightful.
From 1954
I really love speed and suspense. That's why I read books like this. Nothing is shorter and faster than these newsstand paperback original novels. I also love bloody murder, so this book was delightful.
March 23, 2024
"All right, what was I supposed to do now? There wasn’t anything to do. Go along with him until you faced the muzzle of your own Luger and felt the sock of lead and heard the roar with his pale expressionless face up there looking at you."
Gil Brewer cranked out slim pulp crime novels throughout the 1950s and 1960s before he eventually succumbed to a mental breakdown and alcoholism prior to his 1983 death. Some of his books are better than others but this story of a man who is taken hostage by a deranged killer is among his more notable works. Brewer's work doesn't quite stand with that of Jim Thompson or David Goodis but his very readable works remain vibrant and intense to this day.
“They criticized me for the way I went about things, my dreams.” His voice became like still water, like a nest of sleeping snakes, and you could feel the mad wrath contained within that voice. “They always criticized me, even when I did big things. I’m doing a big thing now. They won’t criticize me. If they do, I’ll kill them. Ignorance. There’s no room for it in my plans. No room.”
Gil Brewer cranked out slim pulp crime novels throughout the 1950s and 1960s before he eventually succumbed to a mental breakdown and alcoholism prior to his 1983 death. Some of his books are better than others but this story of a man who is taken hostage by a deranged killer is among his more notable works. Brewer's work doesn't quite stand with that of Jim Thompson or David Goodis but his very readable works remain vibrant and intense to this day.
“They criticized me for the way I went about things, my dreams.” His voice became like still water, like a nest of sleeping snakes, and you could feel the mad wrath contained within that voice. “They always criticized me, even when I did big things. I’m doing a big thing now. They won’t criticize me. If they do, I’ll kill them. Ignorance. There’s no room for it in my plans. No room.”
March 9, 2021
A fantastically taut, relentless noir psychological thriller. Hopeless, desperate ex-cop Steve Logan believes his life can't get any worse. No money, no job, plus a baby on the way. He might just do anything for a few bucks.
"All right, what was I supposed to do now? There wasn’t anything to do. Go along with him until you faced the muzzle of your own Luger and felt the sock of lead and heard the roar with his pale expressionless face up there looking at you. It was a nice feeling. It was fine. And now he was going to phone a real-estate man."
Just when you think you know where this is going Brewer throws in a crazy twist as Logan crosses paths with Ralph Angers, who might just be a wee bit psychopathic, and trigger happy to boot. The fun starts when he inadvertently gets his hands on a gun Logan is trying to sell. The suspense throughout is merciless, as more and more people get caught up in Angers' batshit plans and Logan tries desperately to avoid anything that could set him off while plotting an escape. Angers drags him along for his joy ride of paranoid delusions, deeper and deeper into the abyss.
"All right, what was I supposed to do now? There wasn’t anything to do. Go along with him until you faced the muzzle of your own Luger and felt the sock of lead and heard the roar with his pale expressionless face up there looking at you. It was a nice feeling. It was fine. And now he was going to phone a real-estate man."
Just when you think you know where this is going Brewer throws in a crazy twist as Logan crosses paths with Ralph Angers, who might just be a wee bit psychopathic, and trigger happy to boot. The fun starts when he inadvertently gets his hands on a gun Logan is trying to sell. The suspense throughout is merciless, as more and more people get caught up in Angers' batshit plans and Logan tries desperately to avoid anything that could set him off while plotting an escape. Angers drags him along for his joy ride of paranoid delusions, deeper and deeper into the abyss.
May 17, 2017
Gil Brewer should be better known than he is. This book is a masterpiece
from cover to cover. It is up there with the best of Jim Thompson's
work. The descriptions of the people, the places, and the moods are
crazy good. This is noir as it was meant to be. A man is down on his
luck, way down. His wife, Ruby, is at least nine months ready and he
hasn't found a lick of work in six months or more. Selling the last of
his gun collection ought to pay a few bills. So he goes to his favorite
bartender to sell it. Trouble finds him though in the person of Ralph
Anger, who is do aptly named. And, hours of pure terror with a crazed
gunman ensue. This book is so good you'll want to read it again as
soon asyou finish it
from cover to cover. It is up there with the best of Jim Thompson's
work. The descriptions of the people, the places, and the moods are
crazy good. This is noir as it was meant to be. A man is down on his
luck, way down. His wife, Ruby, is at least nine months ready and he
hasn't found a lick of work in six months or more. Selling the last of
his gun collection ought to pay a few bills. So he goes to his favorite
bartender to sell it. Trouble finds him though in the person of Ralph
Anger, who is do aptly named. And, hours of pure terror with a crazed
gunman ensue. This book is so good you'll want to read it again as
soon asyou finish it
March 26, 2024
Unbelievable. A guy brings a loaded pistol into a bar hoping to sell it to his buddy. Then when asked, hands it loaded and chambered to a stranger who we immediately find out is nuttier than a fruitcake. The consequence of that imprudent move is exactly what you'd expect, and after wiping ex-buddy brain matter from his eyes, our hero is forced to join his new pal and some unfortunate others on a whimsical odyssey of terror exasperation. His inability to outwit the lunatic as they wander around in public, presumably because he has that Luger in his pants pocket, stretched my suspenders of disbelief to the limit by the halfway mark, so I sort of skimmed to the end.
May 5, 2025
Lousy cover. But excellent pulp noir
June 15, 2012
Twenty four hours with your pal, the psycho with a luger. Stay on his good side and he might fix that wonky eye that's been troubling you. Fast and nasty read from one of my favorite noir writers.
April 27, 2021
"The Luger was like a melting chocolate cake in my hip pocket."... meaning, Logan wanted to pull it out and do some blasting. But Logan was a chicken-livered family-man and he let the cake melt in his pocket. Logan accidently becomes the pal of a murderous madman named Ralph. Ralph gets hold of Logan's luger and goes on a rampage. Too bad for the innocent victims that the only one that's in a position to stop Ralph is wishy-washy Logan. Thrilling story, but the madman was too mad, and the book became too much like a monster story.
May 17, 2019
Steve is desperately broke, his wife is expecting their first child and he decides to sell a Luger pistol, a souvenir from the war, to a bar owner he knows is interested in buying it. On his way to the bar he sees a man step out in front of a bus and pulls him back, saving his life. The man, in gratitude insists they go to a bar to celebrate his good fortune. Steve notices there is something 'off' about the man, but decides to take him to the bar he was going to anyway, to sell his pistol.
The guy sat there and looked at Jake. Then he tilted the barrel of the Luger on the edge of the bar and shot Jake Halloran in the head. The slug took Jake in the head. The slug took Jake in the forehead, between the eyes, and went right on through and smashed the bar mirror.
The guy stepped away from the bar stool and walked toward me.
"Pal," he said earnestly, "my name's Ralph Angers. What's yours?"
Never has the word "Pal" been used in a more malignant way.
What follows, over little more than 24 hours are the senseless murders of several innocent people, whose only crime is to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Throughout this story is a persistent and mounting sense of doom and tension, making it difficult for me to read at times. So reluctant was i to carry on reading it, i read several other books whilst struggling through this one.
Yet the quality of writing is such, that i kept coming back to it. This is a classic example of 'noir'; dark, intense, a pervading sense of gloom. The two main characters are the hapless, some might say, clueless, Steve and the pychopathic Ralph. Having inadvertently provided Ralph with the means to kill and control, Steve feels helpless against Ralph's vacuous brutality.
I had got a look at his eyes and there hadn't been anything there. That's what was the matter. There was not a damned thing there, nothing. Just eyes, like a blind man. Nothing registered, you could tell. Just plain eyes. They were gray eyes and they were open and that's all you could say about them.
Recommended. 4.5*
The guy sat there and looked at Jake. Then he tilted the barrel of the Luger on the edge of the bar and shot Jake Halloran in the head. The slug took Jake in the head. The slug took Jake in the forehead, between the eyes, and went right on through and smashed the bar mirror.
The guy stepped away from the bar stool and walked toward me.
"Pal," he said earnestly, "my name's Ralph Angers. What's yours?"
Never has the word "Pal" been used in a more malignant way.
What follows, over little more than 24 hours are the senseless murders of several innocent people, whose only crime is to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Throughout this story is a persistent and mounting sense of doom and tension, making it difficult for me to read at times. So reluctant was i to carry on reading it, i read several other books whilst struggling through this one.
Yet the quality of writing is such, that i kept coming back to it. This is a classic example of 'noir'; dark, intense, a pervading sense of gloom. The two main characters are the hapless, some might say, clueless, Steve and the pychopathic Ralph. Having inadvertently provided Ralph with the means to kill and control, Steve feels helpless against Ralph's vacuous brutality.
I had got a look at his eyes and there hadn't been anything there. That's what was the matter. There was not a damned thing there, nothing. Just eyes, like a blind man. Nothing registered, you could tell. Just plain eyes. They were gray eyes and they were open and that's all you could say about them.
Recommended. 4.5*
February 11, 2008
Comment on first reading: In Gil Brewer's fifth novel, he moves beyond the dated titillation that dominates much of his earlier work. A noir Everyman, his pregnant wife on the verge of labor, finds his fate accidentally entangled with that of a psychopath. Enough said about the plot--this is a creepy classic. Read it, and the word "pal" will never sound the same to you again.
Comment on second reading: Awesome the first time, awesome the second time.
First reading: 22 February 2008
Second reading: 10 July 2013
Comment on second reading: Awesome the first time, awesome the second time.
First reading: 22 February 2008
Second reading: 10 July 2013
November 18, 2014
Starts a bit slow as Brewer sets things up with down on his luck Steve Logan and his pregnant wife needing money. So Logan heads out with his Luger to get some money he is owed, but he loses his nerve and just busts the guy's nose instead and leaves without the money. Walking down the street despondent he sees a guy step off the curb in front of an oncoming bus and rushes out and pushes the guy out of the way. Before much longer Logan is wishing he'd let the bus run the guy over because Ralph Angers is a psychopath. The rest of the book moves at an accelerated pace as Angers drags Logan along with him at gun point. Murdering people who get in his way. They are pursued by the police and the novel eventually ends with sound and fury. Logan is our narrator so it is not a spoiler alert to say that he survives this harrowing episode which all takes place in one day. Gets a bit repetitive at times, but still a neat noir with plenty of pace. Don't agree that this is Brewer's best, but it is up there near the top.
June 17, 2016
It's not exactly an in-depth study of mental illness but it's not just another serial killer story either. I think it tries to say that we sometimes need a bit of a shock therapy in order to appreciate the things we have. Steve is an invalid, he's jobless with his house under two mortgages but once he gets on this insane journey into darkness with Angers, all he can think of is his wife delivering their baby. Nice.
More here (review includes spoilers!):
http://a60books.blogspot.ie/2015/09/a...
More here (review includes spoilers!):
http://a60books.blogspot.ie/2015/09/a...
December 7, 2018
4.5
Audiobook
Published in 1958
Not what I expected at all. I spent a lot of time with my mouth hanging open in astonishment. I had no idea what was going to happen and was darkly amused in a macabre way.
Steven is down on his luck. He can't get a job because of an eye injury. His wife is about to give birth at any moment. The only money they have is a couple of greenbacks of the lowest number, some old pennies and a house that's mortgaged through the roof. He decides to take his last prized gun and either go sell it or go threaten this guy that owes him money for a job he did. Once he walks out the door, things will never be the same again.
A bizarre, quietly violent journey with a madman.
Audiobook
Published in 1958
Not what I expected at all. I spent a lot of time with my mouth hanging open in astonishment. I had no idea what was going to happen and was darkly amused in a macabre way.
Steven is down on his luck. He can't get a job because of an eye injury. His wife is about to give birth at any moment. The only money they have is a couple of greenbacks of the lowest number, some old pennies and a house that's mortgaged through the roof. He decides to take his last prized gun and either go sell it or go threaten this guy that owes him money for a job he did. Once he walks out the door, things will never be the same again.
A bizarre, quietly violent journey with a madman.
February 21, 2013
Ex-cop Steve Logan is in economic free-fall; he can’t find work due to damage done to his eyes, and he's broke again, a dangerous situation to be in with a baby on the way and expectations for high hospital bills. When he can’t think of any other option, Steve heads off to pawn his last pistol, a fine Luger, to a bartender friend. On the way, he narrowly saves the life of stranger Ralph Angers from an oncoming bus. Soon, he wishes he hadn’t: Ralph somehow gets a hold of the Luger, drills the bartender, and drags his new pal Steve through a nightmare of murder and suspense.
A Killer Is Loose was written in rapid-fire haze of coffee and cigarettes in under two weeks, and was published in first draft form without revisions, Brewer’s standard operating procedure for his earlier works. It’s reflected in the sheer immediacy of the novel, its tense scenes with a sense of present terror. It also accounts for the novel’s flaws, such as the awkward introduction (and end) of Ralph Angers. The novel doesn’t have a sense of a linear narrative: Ralph makes off with Steve at gunpoint, after which the book is almost picaresque, a loosely-associated collection of scenes drifting from one scenario to another, all of which involve Steve being uncomfortable and somebody who antagonizes Ralph into opening fire.
I guess you could argue that it reflects Ralph’s disconnection with the world, bumping into reality as he goes about his grand vision, and it certainly leads to some fine, suspenseful scenes. Brewer created a sympathetic character and put him in uncomfortably tense situations, with spectacular results. It’s a fast and grim read from one of the best in the Gold Medal field. Worth a look for readers of ’50s Gold Medal crime novels, and a must-read for fans of Gil Brewer.
Full review found here.
A Killer Is Loose was written in rapid-fire haze of coffee and cigarettes in under two weeks, and was published in first draft form without revisions, Brewer’s standard operating procedure for his earlier works. It’s reflected in the sheer immediacy of the novel, its tense scenes with a sense of present terror. It also accounts for the novel’s flaws, such as the awkward introduction (and end) of Ralph Angers. The novel doesn’t have a sense of a linear narrative: Ralph makes off with Steve at gunpoint, after which the book is almost picaresque, a loosely-associated collection of scenes drifting from one scenario to another, all of which involve Steve being uncomfortable and somebody who antagonizes Ralph into opening fire.
I guess you could argue that it reflects Ralph’s disconnection with the world, bumping into reality as he goes about his grand vision, and it certainly leads to some fine, suspenseful scenes. Brewer created a sympathetic character and put him in uncomfortably tense situations, with spectacular results. It’s a fast and grim read from one of the best in the Gold Medal field. Worth a look for readers of ’50s Gold Medal crime novels, and a must-read for fans of Gil Brewer.
Full review found here.
February 17, 2017
Book noir, January 4, 2016
This review is from: A Killer is Loose (Prologue Crime) (Kindle Edition)
Well written in a terse direct style with a suspenseful plot about a man caught up in a madman's nightmare. I found the ending a little weak with the victim seemingly afflicted with a touch of what we now know as Stockholm Syndrome.
This review is from: A Killer is Loose (Prologue Crime) (Kindle Edition)
Well written in a terse direct style with a suspenseful plot about a man caught up in a madman's nightmare. I found the ending a little weak with the victim seemingly afflicted with a touch of what we now know as Stockholm Syndrome.
January 23, 2025
“God help anybody who said the wrong thing to this guy”. Steve Logan has a pregnant wife, no money, zero employment opportunities, a lot of victimhood and a gun. Note: this is 1954 not 2025. Logan entertains us with a couple of early bad decisions but then saves the life of one Ralph Angers who swiftly teaches him what indifferent sociopathy really looks like.
Angers will just as soon shoot you in the face as examine his nails and what with his left-field non sequiturs, creepy assertions of friendship and randomly walking into houses and pressuring little girls into playing his favourite piano tune he makes for a simultaneously terrifying and exasperating antagonist. There is a Highsmithian sense of evil coming off this character (“Killer” appeared a few years after Highsmith’s “Strangers On A Train” but just before “The Talented Mr Ripley”), he has the whole dead behind the eyes thing (eyes are all over this novel) and given the decade of its publication he seems to anticipate the army of crazies and Scorsese-level lunatics that fiction, and reality, would give us. However, Angers is such a rogue element, a walking psychiatric aberrance, that, with a gun in his hand, we the reader are just at the mercy of his whims and caprices as Logan and hostage Lillian. This is a novel where the antagonist forces a nightmare sense of chaos and randomness onto the narrative and for this reader Anger’s cuckoo aim of building a hospital (one with a lot of rubber wallpaper and a penthouse suite for him one hopes) isn’t enough of a narrative tether. So we wander around town a lot with Logan getting ever more urgent news of his pregnant wife, Angers randomly shooting old dears and anyone who looks askance at him while Lillian, once she gets some clothes on, tries to make a break for it. It’s a good thing Brewer kept this short; any longer and Angers' postcard from Nutsville would sorely test one’s patience.
Nevertheless, there’s a pleasing sense of these “WTF?” events scandalising the city and every bozo cop woken up and deployed to halt Angers' rampage. Meanwhile Brewer’s creation of Steve Logan is interesting, he pointedly reports that Logan is not an economic victim of the Depression but an eye accident has rendered him near unemployable and driven mad by medical bills while everyone else seems to be driving a Cadillac. Sure, Logan duffs up a client and throws him off a boat when expected monies are not forthcoming, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but then on hearing news of his wife taken into hospital (“What a Ruby!”) he sorely tests our sympathies by not immediately dropping everything and going to her side. There are some behavioural lines one still does not cross in these waters. The novel therefore asks the reader whether petty, down-on-his-luck, thug Logan really deserves his fateful encounter with Angers and all that follows? What’s the relative morality here? If Angers didn’t happen to him Logan would be getting a call from the cops himself and likely facing court so did Lady Fate decide to teach him a lesson? It’s a pleasing sense of moral queasiness to go along with the body count.
In the end Brewer lands the plane adequately, Logan gets off (a lot) more lightly than one might think and Angers gets just enough back story to suggest why he went snooker loopy while not remotely justifying his actions. I would have preferred a “Silence of the Lambs” fate for Angers – alive and well and melting into the crowd to perpetually haunt our dreams – but Brewer’s finale is fine for what it is. “A Killer Is Loose” is overall an unsettling and discombulating read but Brewer’s light touch on period details means it translates all too disturbingly to the era of Raol Moat, Derrick Bird and any high school shooting you care to recall. Not my favourite Brewer but quite the ride nonetheless. “Lost, that was it; lost and lost and lost.”
Angers will just as soon shoot you in the face as examine his nails and what with his left-field non sequiturs, creepy assertions of friendship and randomly walking into houses and pressuring little girls into playing his favourite piano tune he makes for a simultaneously terrifying and exasperating antagonist. There is a Highsmithian sense of evil coming off this character (“Killer” appeared a few years after Highsmith’s “Strangers On A Train” but just before “The Talented Mr Ripley”), he has the whole dead behind the eyes thing (eyes are all over this novel) and given the decade of its publication he seems to anticipate the army of crazies and Scorsese-level lunatics that fiction, and reality, would give us. However, Angers is such a rogue element, a walking psychiatric aberrance, that, with a gun in his hand, we the reader are just at the mercy of his whims and caprices as Logan and hostage Lillian. This is a novel where the antagonist forces a nightmare sense of chaos and randomness onto the narrative and for this reader Anger’s cuckoo aim of building a hospital (one with a lot of rubber wallpaper and a penthouse suite for him one hopes) isn’t enough of a narrative tether. So we wander around town a lot with Logan getting ever more urgent news of his pregnant wife, Angers randomly shooting old dears and anyone who looks askance at him while Lillian, once she gets some clothes on, tries to make a break for it. It’s a good thing Brewer kept this short; any longer and Angers' postcard from Nutsville would sorely test one’s patience.
Nevertheless, there’s a pleasing sense of these “WTF?” events scandalising the city and every bozo cop woken up and deployed to halt Angers' rampage. Meanwhile Brewer’s creation of Steve Logan is interesting, he pointedly reports that Logan is not an economic victim of the Depression but an eye accident has rendered him near unemployable and driven mad by medical bills while everyone else seems to be driving a Cadillac. Sure, Logan duffs up a client and throws him off a boat when expected monies are not forthcoming, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but then on hearing news of his wife taken into hospital (“What a Ruby!”) he sorely tests our sympathies by not immediately dropping everything and going to her side. There are some behavioural lines one still does not cross in these waters. The novel therefore asks the reader whether petty, down-on-his-luck, thug Logan really deserves his fateful encounter with Angers and all that follows? What’s the relative morality here? If Angers didn’t happen to him Logan would be getting a call from the cops himself and likely facing court so did Lady Fate decide to teach him a lesson? It’s a pleasing sense of moral queasiness to go along with the body count.
In the end Brewer lands the plane adequately, Logan gets off (a lot) more lightly than one might think and Angers gets just enough back story to suggest why he went snooker loopy while not remotely justifying his actions. I would have preferred a “Silence of the Lambs” fate for Angers – alive and well and melting into the crowd to perpetually haunt our dreams – but Brewer’s finale is fine for what it is. “A Killer Is Loose” is overall an unsettling and discombulating read but Brewer’s light touch on period details means it translates all too disturbingly to the era of Raol Moat, Derrick Bird and any high school shooting you care to recall. Not my favourite Brewer but quite the ride nonetheless. “Lost, that was it; lost and lost and lost.”
November 5, 2025
4 1/2 Stars. Steve is married to Ruby who is expecting to go into labor at any minute. They are in rough territory. Steve hasn’t worked in several months and they’ve been inundated with bills and they aren’t sure how to pay the hospital when the time comes. Steve had a gun collection but had sold all but one piece. He decides that he’ll sell it to a bar owner that had expressed interest in it. On his way there he saves the life of a man who is about to be run over by a bus. This man, Ralph Angers, immediately takes on Steve as his new pal. But Ralph is a psycho. And the murders begin within the next twenty minutes. Steve is unable to escape his new pal. He is virtually a slave to Ralph’s demands. The entire novel takes place in about a twenty hour timeframe. This was an absolutely enthralling book.
May 30, 2019
Deep focus on character drives this dark thriller. This novel creates stomach-queasy tension that doesn't let up until the end. It starts out setting up the main character-narrator, drawing his character in a brief conversation with his pregnant wife. When the down-and-out narrator does a good deed, the bottom drops out of his life that seemed already as low as it could go. Gil Brewer kept me in fear and horror for chapter after chapter, wringing out my soul as his characters had theirs crushed. I wish more writers had skill equal to this. A must-read.
November 25, 2018
So far, my least favorite GB book. Usually, I love his stuff. The pacing. The action. Not here. The plot was too unbelievable. The villain too poorly drawn. The protagonist was weak, as were the supporting characters. I guess this is what happens when you write in an era of no re-writes, little editing, and are churning out, sometimes, a hundred stories in a year. Oh well. I still love the guy. They can’t all be winners. On to the next one...
November 18, 2025
A little bit of a different formula from Mr. Brewer in this one... Instead of a spicy young femme fatale antagonizing the situation we have Ralph Angers, an unstable sociopath with a penchant for murdering anyone who interferes with his dubious "plans." An early - 1954 - GB novel, and a pretty good one.
December 6, 2024
A major surprise. I picked up a cheap, generic 1960s paperback copy of this novel for no particular reason, opened it without any hope, and was amazed at how intense and violent and compelling it is. It deserves to be rediscovered. Just remember that I discovered it first.
July 4, 2013
A Killer Is Loose (1954)
Some book dealer with a vested interest in selling the book (Yes, it worked) said that if you read one Gil Brewer novel, this is the one to read. Steve, a broke guy whose wife Ruby is about to give birth, takes his Luger to collect $270 from a guy who owes him for working on his boat. He chickens out on shooting the guy, though he does break his nose, and then goes to a bar where a guy named Ralph, who is a homicidal maniac who wants to build a hospital, takes possession of the gun and does on a killing spree, bringing along his (Ralph’s) girlfriend Lillian and Steve. Both Steve and Ralph are war veterans and there’s a lot of subtext about class, social justice, and most notably, homosexuality. This would make a good Hitchcock film with its theme about shared guilt. Maybe not Brewer’s best, but a great read.
Some book dealer with a vested interest in selling the book (Yes, it worked) said that if you read one Gil Brewer novel, this is the one to read. Steve, a broke guy whose wife Ruby is about to give birth, takes his Luger to collect $270 from a guy who owes him for working on his boat. He chickens out on shooting the guy, though he does break his nose, and then goes to a bar where a guy named Ralph, who is a homicidal maniac who wants to build a hospital, takes possession of the gun and does on a killing spree, bringing along his (Ralph’s) girlfriend Lillian and Steve. Both Steve and Ralph are war veterans and there’s a lot of subtext about class, social justice, and most notably, homosexuality. This would make a good Hitchcock film with its theme about shared guilt. Maybe not Brewer’s best, but a great read.
August 9, 2009
a rampaging psychopath is saved by the novel's main character and is subsequently led through a rampaging murder spree in the city (along with the doctor's other forced companion, a former strip-dancer), while his wife is rushed to the hospital to give birth to their first child. A good friend swears by this, and I have to say it is quite good, but as the middle of the novel came about the characters' wandering and repetition of basic premises stalled the "thrill" side of the psychopath's rampage.
the narrative framing device introducing and removing the psychopath from the story is pretty bad though.
nonetheless, a classic of sorts.
the narrative framing device introducing and removing the psychopath from the story is pretty bad though.
nonetheless, a classic of sorts.
September 18, 2012
No date. Bootleg? First pub. by Fawcett mentioned). I loved this one. My first Brewer. Now I know what the fuss is all about. Narrator Steve Logan leaves his very pregnant wife at home and goes off to sell a revolver to a bartender of his aquaintance. A guy in the bar, Ralph Angers (great name), grabs the gun and abducts Steve, taking him on a psychotic quest. All Steve wants is to get to his wife and baby in the hospital, but the killer has other plans, involving another hospital. A very gripping look at an obsessed madman and his many victims. Really well written.
February 24, 2013
Great Gil Brewer novel all the way through. The twist in this story comes right at the beginning, as when lead character Steve Logan, desperate and broke and with his wife expecting a child at any time, storms out seeking to reclaim money he feels owed to him - right away you know that there is going to be trouble. But the trouble Steve finds himself in nothing near what you expect. The novel takes this twist of a beginning and carries it through to it's ultimate conclusion; a classic Brewer tale but at the same time new and refreshing - a superb read!
April 10, 2016
I read this in 2016 and I decided to read it again and I'm glad I did. This is great noir in the company of writers like Jim Thompson and David Goodis. I see too many private detective and hardboiled novels described, often inappropriately, as noir but this is the real thing. The only thing that makes it slightly less great is the somewhat happy ending although nothing has really changed for the better for the protagonist except that hellish experience he was involved in finally came to an end.
January 21, 2010
Like other Brewer novels, the timeline of this one is less than 24 hours. But unlike other, better novels of his, there is no femme fatale, which is kind of a Brewer hallmark.
I think it's good Brewer, but not great Brewer.
I think it's good Brewer, but not great Brewer.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews