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4 Novels
- GenresMystery
588 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
33 people want to read
About the author
W.R. Burnett
61 books44 followersWilliam Riley "W. R." Burnett was an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for the crime novel Little Caesar, the film adaptation of which is considered the first of the classic American gangster movies. Burnett was born in Springfield, Ohio. He left his civil service job there to move to Chicago when he was 28, by which time he had written over 100 short stories and five novels, all unpublished.
Burnett kept busy, producing a novel or more a year and turning most into screenplays (some as many as three times). Thematically Burnett was similar to Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain but his contrasting of the corruption and corrosion of the city with the better life his characters yearned for, represented by the paradise of the pastoral, was fresh and original. He portrayed characters who, for one reason or another, fell into a life of crime. Once sucked into this life they were unable to climb out. They typically get one last shot at salvation but the oppressive system closes in and denies redemption.
Burnett's characters exist in a world of twilight morality — virtue can come from gangsters and criminals, malice from guardians and protectors. Above all his characters are human and this could be their undoing.
Burnett worked with many of the greats in acting and directing, including Raoul Walsh, John Huston, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray, Douglas Sirk, Michael Cimino, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Paul Muni, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood.
He received an Oscar nomination for his script for "Wake Island" (1942) and a Writers Guild nomination for his script for "The Great Escape". In addition to his film work he also wrote scripts for television and radio.
On his death in 1982, in Santa Monica, California,Burnett was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California
Burnett kept busy, producing a novel or more a year and turning most into screenplays (some as many as three times). Thematically Burnett was similar to Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain but his contrasting of the corruption and corrosion of the city with the better life his characters yearned for, represented by the paradise of the pastoral, was fresh and original. He portrayed characters who, for one reason or another, fell into a life of crime. Once sucked into this life they were unable to climb out. They typically get one last shot at salvation but the oppressive system closes in and denies redemption.
Burnett's characters exist in a world of twilight morality — virtue can come from gangsters and criminals, malice from guardians and protectors. Above all his characters are human and this could be their undoing.
Burnett worked with many of the greats in acting and directing, including Raoul Walsh, John Huston, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray, Douglas Sirk, Michael Cimino, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Paul Muni, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood.
He received an Oscar nomination for his script for "Wake Island" (1942) and a Writers Guild nomination for his script for "The Great Escape". In addition to his film work he also wrote scripts for television and radio.
On his death in 1982, in Santa Monica, California,Burnett was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 17, 2025
The Asphalt Jungle by W.R. Burnett
10 out of 10
It is very rare to find a magnum opus such as the Asphalt Jungle, but it is unique and almost impossible surely to find more than ten other brilliant works of art that would make it there, among the very best, the crème de la crème, in both book and cinematic format, for this bestseller has made on both The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list (https://www.listchallenges.com/new-yo...) and The Guardian’s 1,000 novels Everyone Must Read compilation, in the Crime section - https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
A group of very interesting, if flawed, evidently, individuals try to pull off a major heist, indeed, the biggest in the history of this Midwestern town, which has never seen a robbery to exceed the figure of one million dollars – which would be more than one hundred in the currency of the present – that would target a jewelry store, masterminded by the newly released from prison, infamous as a man with a reputation for major operations, Erwin ‘Doc’ Riedenschneider, a German American with a perverse inclination for very young, in fact underage girls – a disgusting inclination that might bring his downfall – who arrives at the start to see a bookmaker dealing in illegal bets, Cobby.
Doc Riedenschneider has a proposition to make for the very influent lawyer, Alonzo Emmerich, the one recommended by a jail bird that has served with the Doc – in fact, one of the terms of the arrangement on the table is that the attorney would help release the friend of the criminal mastermind – and when they meet at the house by the lake, which the lawyer has set up expensively, going beyond his means in the process, for the gorgeous, resplendent Angela Phinlay (played by Marilyn Monroe in the big screen adaptation), the German has a feeling that there is something phony, suspicious about the would be partner in crime, who has some odd propositions, once he sees that this is the hit of the century.
Spending with no restraint, Emmerich has long passed the limit and although there are people who owe him more than one hundred thousand, it would be difficult and anyway time consuming to recuperate even part of that, not to mention that the tax office expects him to pay another one hundred thousand or more and he has to finance the operation as his participation in the deal, in exchange for a percentage of the take, which would be expensive diamonds and other jewelry that would have to be handed over to what they call a ‘front’, someone with access to huge amounts of cash, that would give perhaps 50% of the value of the stones and then distribute them across the country, as we would later learnt that this side of the ‘business ‘works from the head of operations.
The lawyer is frantic and makes a mistake when he quickly offers to be the ‘front’, although that is not the way things are managed, he attracts the attention of Riedenschneider and he has a less than convincing explanation for this idea, even if the reader has an inside track into this development and sees that the would be financier has no means to put up the cash and he is now envisaging a different outcome for the heist, one in which he simply runs with the gems, double-crossing his partners and though aware of the Clear and Present death Danger, he sees no other alternative for the mess he is in, unable to face the pressure and sure that he would be bankrupt and finished, one way or another…
Another character, in fact probably the main personage the hero aka antihero of the story is Dix Handley – who ‘works’ as a tough man under this assumed name, a hooligan as the German calls his profile – who is a complex figure, involved in hustling and perhaps we could call it smaller crime, chosen by the mastermind to be the ‘muscle’, the one to bring force to the scene, if something unexpected happens and they have to face a guard, private detective or another unpredicted, dangerous foes, and he is the one who wants to abandon it all, leave this life outside the law and return to his southern farm, uninterested at one point in money, sure in his mind that if there would be fifty, maybe five hundred thousand and he would still rather go home…
Two other characters involved in the narrative would be Gus Minissi, a good friend and the one who supports Dix all the way through, a former criminal who is still participating in robberies, such as this jewelry heist, and another friend of his, Louis Ciavelli, a married man, who has a baby and has kept this side of his life secret from his wife, who thinks that he has a day job and he has left behind the bachelor, agitated life he had had, only to be astonished and tormented when her spouse would come home seriously injured, supposedly in a fight wherein someone will have fired a gun.
Emmerich pulls off part of his double game, when he invites the eager Cobby to participate in the robbery, although not in the percentages, which would be divided between the lawyer, mastermind, who has it all planned and means to pay fixed amounts for the help, the ‘hooligan and the tool man, Louis Ciavelli’ for discussion of percentages with the tough men is risky, for they often – or most of the time – get greedy and use force to grab more or all of the fortune…in fact, dix would be offered $ 5,000 at the start and another five thousand at the end, plus a few percentages.
Cobby would put up fifty thousand, in exchange for a profit of $ 20,000 at the end, all for the few days that his money would be needed to finance and execute the plan, although he is told to keep this a secret and not mention it to Doc, who would have become more than suspicious if he were to know this crucial detail, which does not strike the bookmaker, for he is so much in awe with the lawyer, who has been seen as a major player and very few had been aware of his inevitable financial collapse, if any…
One aspect which is interesting although somewhat intriguing for the present day reader, used as he or she is with the modern age Goodfellas type of crime, to make this trip to the past, where there were very few phones, never mind the ubiquitous mobile handsets of this age, and a totally different attitude of the police – at one instance, one of the main players – let us stay away from spoilers and keep his name secret – has to make a call and the commissioner allows him to place it in private…we do not see that in the stories that take place today…after all, the free world has one of the most vicious liars in history as leader, if he is not convicted by the Senate – there is a one in ten million chance that this happens
10 out of 10
It is very rare to find a magnum opus such as the Asphalt Jungle, but it is unique and almost impossible surely to find more than ten other brilliant works of art that would make it there, among the very best, the crème de la crème, in both book and cinematic format, for this bestseller has made on both The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list (https://www.listchallenges.com/new-yo...) and The Guardian’s 1,000 novels Everyone Must Read compilation, in the Crime section - https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
A group of very interesting, if flawed, evidently, individuals try to pull off a major heist, indeed, the biggest in the history of this Midwestern town, which has never seen a robbery to exceed the figure of one million dollars – which would be more than one hundred in the currency of the present – that would target a jewelry store, masterminded by the newly released from prison, infamous as a man with a reputation for major operations, Erwin ‘Doc’ Riedenschneider, a German American with a perverse inclination for very young, in fact underage girls – a disgusting inclination that might bring his downfall – who arrives at the start to see a bookmaker dealing in illegal bets, Cobby.
Doc Riedenschneider has a proposition to make for the very influent lawyer, Alonzo Emmerich, the one recommended by a jail bird that has served with the Doc – in fact, one of the terms of the arrangement on the table is that the attorney would help release the friend of the criminal mastermind – and when they meet at the house by the lake, which the lawyer has set up expensively, going beyond his means in the process, for the gorgeous, resplendent Angela Phinlay (played by Marilyn Monroe in the big screen adaptation), the German has a feeling that there is something phony, suspicious about the would be partner in crime, who has some odd propositions, once he sees that this is the hit of the century.
Spending with no restraint, Emmerich has long passed the limit and although there are people who owe him more than one hundred thousand, it would be difficult and anyway time consuming to recuperate even part of that, not to mention that the tax office expects him to pay another one hundred thousand or more and he has to finance the operation as his participation in the deal, in exchange for a percentage of the take, which would be expensive diamonds and other jewelry that would have to be handed over to what they call a ‘front’, someone with access to huge amounts of cash, that would give perhaps 50% of the value of the stones and then distribute them across the country, as we would later learnt that this side of the ‘business ‘works from the head of operations.
The lawyer is frantic and makes a mistake when he quickly offers to be the ‘front’, although that is not the way things are managed, he attracts the attention of Riedenschneider and he has a less than convincing explanation for this idea, even if the reader has an inside track into this development and sees that the would be financier has no means to put up the cash and he is now envisaging a different outcome for the heist, one in which he simply runs with the gems, double-crossing his partners and though aware of the Clear and Present death Danger, he sees no other alternative for the mess he is in, unable to face the pressure and sure that he would be bankrupt and finished, one way or another…
Another character, in fact probably the main personage the hero aka antihero of the story is Dix Handley – who ‘works’ as a tough man under this assumed name, a hooligan as the German calls his profile – who is a complex figure, involved in hustling and perhaps we could call it smaller crime, chosen by the mastermind to be the ‘muscle’, the one to bring force to the scene, if something unexpected happens and they have to face a guard, private detective or another unpredicted, dangerous foes, and he is the one who wants to abandon it all, leave this life outside the law and return to his southern farm, uninterested at one point in money, sure in his mind that if there would be fifty, maybe five hundred thousand and he would still rather go home…
Two other characters involved in the narrative would be Gus Minissi, a good friend and the one who supports Dix all the way through, a former criminal who is still participating in robberies, such as this jewelry heist, and another friend of his, Louis Ciavelli, a married man, who has a baby and has kept this side of his life secret from his wife, who thinks that he has a day job and he has left behind the bachelor, agitated life he had had, only to be astonished and tormented when her spouse would come home seriously injured, supposedly in a fight wherein someone will have fired a gun.
Emmerich pulls off part of his double game, when he invites the eager Cobby to participate in the robbery, although not in the percentages, which would be divided between the lawyer, mastermind, who has it all planned and means to pay fixed amounts for the help, the ‘hooligan and the tool man, Louis Ciavelli’ for discussion of percentages with the tough men is risky, for they often – or most of the time – get greedy and use force to grab more or all of the fortune…in fact, dix would be offered $ 5,000 at the start and another five thousand at the end, plus a few percentages.
Cobby would put up fifty thousand, in exchange for a profit of $ 20,000 at the end, all for the few days that his money would be needed to finance and execute the plan, although he is told to keep this a secret and not mention it to Doc, who would have become more than suspicious if he were to know this crucial detail, which does not strike the bookmaker, for he is so much in awe with the lawyer, who has been seen as a major player and very few had been aware of his inevitable financial collapse, if any…
One aspect which is interesting although somewhat intriguing for the present day reader, used as he or she is with the modern age Goodfellas type of crime, to make this trip to the past, where there were very few phones, never mind the ubiquitous mobile handsets of this age, and a totally different attitude of the police – at one instance, one of the main players – let us stay away from spoilers and keep his name secret – has to make a call and the commissioner allows him to place it in private…we do not see that in the stories that take place today…after all, the free world has one of the most vicious liars in history as leader, if he is not convicted by the Senate – there is a one in ten million chance that this happens
June 21, 2024
6 page Introduction by David Wingrove
Gangsters, their molls, their world, nightclubs, speakeasies, brothels, corrupt cops, politicians, etc.
Burnett is one of the earliest writers in this genre, both books and movies, but not the best writer. (See Ray Chandler) The authors has a supposed distrust of “all things political” p. vii but a slight left-leaning bias still shows through.
Gangsters, their molls, their world, nightclubs, speakeasies, brothels, corrupt cops, politicians, etc.
Burnett is one of the earliest writers in this genre, both books and movies, but not the best writer. (See Ray Chandler) The authors has a supposed distrust of “all things political” p. vii but a slight left-leaning bias still shows through.
March 9, 2014
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12260711
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12260711
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews