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The Name of the Game is Death / One Endless Hour
Stephen King called Marlowe “the hardest of the hard-boiled,” and these two novels are his masterpieces. Here are the two books that introduce Earl Drake, a hardened thief on a mission of vengeance. He’s been shot, burned and put away in an asylum—but they can’t keep him there. Drake is a force to be reckoned with. Barry Gifford said it “Nobody wrote tougher prose than Dan J. Marlowe. Nobody.” This volume includes an introduction by Charles Kelly, author of "Gunshots in Another The Forgotten Life of Dan J. Marlowe."
240 pages, Paperback
First published March 29, 2013
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About the author
Dan J. Marlowe
87 books35 followersaka 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").
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").
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 4, 2017
Dan J. Marlowe. The name alone brings an echo of the hardboiled—
“I’ll be leaving one of these days, and the day I do they’ll never forget it.”
He wrote in the heyday of the paperback original. His best work was published by Gold Medal, and his novels stand above most of his contemporaries as hard, uncompromising masterpieces of hardboiled crime and suspense.
His life was as strange as his fiction: he is likely the plainest womanizer exported by Massachusetts; he gambled professionally for several years; he befriended, lived with, and co-wrote several short stories with the notorious bank robber Al Nussbaum; and late in life he developed memory loss and something called aphasia—“partial or total inability to write and understand words.”
And all that is only the beginning. Not to mention it was parroted from the introduction, written by Marlowe’s biographer Charles Kelly, to the new trade paperback double published by Stark House Press. It features two of Marlowe’s best novels, which really, are two halves a single story: The Name of the Game is Death (Gold Medal 1962), and One Endless Hour (Gold Medal 1969).
The novels tell the genesis story of Marlowe’s Earl Drake series character. Drake is not a likable man. He is a bank robber with a predilection for killing people. He doesn’t kill simply to kill, but kill he does. The Name of the Game is Death opens at the scene of a botched bank robbery with Drake shot in the escape. He and his partner split up, and Drake finds a doctor and a dark place to hide until he is recuperated and the heat is off, which is when the story really begins. His partner went missing with the money, and Drake is broke. The rest of Name of the Game is Drake’s search for his partner, and the money, and One Endless Hour is the fallout.
The two novels merge into one complete and engrossing story, which is not to say either is dependent on the other; both are complete with beginning, middle, and end. However the plot in One Endless Hour is built directly from Name of the Game. In fact, the final chapter of Name of the Game is included, with a few adjustments as the Prologue to One Endless Hour.
Name of the Game is the stronger of the two novels. It includes an exposition of Drake’s childhood, explaining (without apologizing) for Drake’s seeming amoral character. Its backstory emphasis and character development is reminiscent of John D. MacDonald, but only just. Its prose is raw and hardboiled—
“I swear both his feet were off the ground when he fired at me. The odds must have been sixty thousand to one, but he took me in the left upper arm. It smashed me back against the car. I steadied myself with a hand on the roof and put two a yard behind each other right through his belt buckle. If they had their windows open they could have heard him across town.”
—and it is more thematically related to Jim Thompson than John D.
One Endless Hour is more of a straight caper novel. It lacks Name of the Game’s character development, and backstory, but it flashes pure action. And, if you consider the two novels as one story, it is the climactic resolution. The differences in pacing and plotting act to strengthen the two novels’ impact rather than diminish it, and the new Stark House edition is the perfect way to experience the story arc.
“I’ll be leaving one of these days, and the day I do they’ll never forget it.”
He wrote in the heyday of the paperback original. His best work was published by Gold Medal, and his novels stand above most of his contemporaries as hard, uncompromising masterpieces of hardboiled crime and suspense.
His life was as strange as his fiction: he is likely the plainest womanizer exported by Massachusetts; he gambled professionally for several years; he befriended, lived with, and co-wrote several short stories with the notorious bank robber Al Nussbaum; and late in life he developed memory loss and something called aphasia—“partial or total inability to write and understand words.”
And all that is only the beginning. Not to mention it was parroted from the introduction, written by Marlowe’s biographer Charles Kelly, to the new trade paperback double published by Stark House Press. It features two of Marlowe’s best novels, which really, are two halves a single story: The Name of the Game is Death (Gold Medal 1962), and One Endless Hour (Gold Medal 1969).
The novels tell the genesis story of Marlowe’s Earl Drake series character. Drake is not a likable man. He is a bank robber with a predilection for killing people. He doesn’t kill simply to kill, but kill he does. The Name of the Game is Death opens at the scene of a botched bank robbery with Drake shot in the escape. He and his partner split up, and Drake finds a doctor and a dark place to hide until he is recuperated and the heat is off, which is when the story really begins. His partner went missing with the money, and Drake is broke. The rest of Name of the Game is Drake’s search for his partner, and the money, and One Endless Hour is the fallout.
The two novels merge into one complete and engrossing story, which is not to say either is dependent on the other; both are complete with beginning, middle, and end. However the plot in One Endless Hour is built directly from Name of the Game. In fact, the final chapter of Name of the Game is included, with a few adjustments as the Prologue to One Endless Hour.
Name of the Game is the stronger of the two novels. It includes an exposition of Drake’s childhood, explaining (without apologizing) for Drake’s seeming amoral character. Its backstory emphasis and character development is reminiscent of John D. MacDonald, but only just. Its prose is raw and hardboiled—
“I swear both his feet were off the ground when he fired at me. The odds must have been sixty thousand to one, but he took me in the left upper arm. It smashed me back against the car. I steadied myself with a hand on the roof and put two a yard behind each other right through his belt buckle. If they had their windows open they could have heard him across town.”
—and it is more thematically related to Jim Thompson than John D.
One Endless Hour is more of a straight caper novel. It lacks Name of the Game’s character development, and backstory, but it flashes pure action. And, if you consider the two novels as one story, it is the climactic resolution. The differences in pacing and plotting act to strengthen the two novels’ impact rather than diminish it, and the new Stark House edition is the perfect way to experience the story arc.
May 19, 2024
This book is a classic among fans of hard-boiled crime fiction. Stephen King called it the hardest of the hard-boiled, and I have to agree with him on that. The plotting is relentless and so is the main character. I’ve never seen a character who so purely embodies animosity and determination.
The story opens with Earl Drake and his partner Bunny robbing a bank in Arizona. Things go awry halfway through the job, and Earl shoots several guards before getting shot himself. To make things worse, their getaway driver loses his nerve just as they’re exiting, and he winds up taking a bullet too.
But Earl is a pro and has an iron nerve. He manages a clean getaway and sends Bunny off to Florida with most of the cash. They plan to meet up later, after Earl gets medical treatment and recovers from his gunshot wound. In the meantime, Bunny mails an envelope of cash every now and then to keep Earl afloat.
Until one day the cash stops coming and Earl knows something has happened to Bunny. Time to go to Florida and investigate.
As a kid, Earl developed a deep hatred of bullies and of authority. He also developed an ability to patiently endure the most savage of beatings while coolly plotting his revenge. When three thugs take turns beating the crap out of him in an alley, he warns them that if they don’t kill him, he will track them down and kill them. And he does, patiently and methodically.
The cop who beats him blind in a jail cell suffers the same fate, as does the cop who railroads his friend into a long prison sentence on false charges.
On the long drive from Arizona to Florida, Earl picks up a new license and a new name. He shows up in the small town of Hudson as Chet Arnold, picks up work pruning trees and takes his time sussing out info about his partner, Bunny. He knows that Bunny, a deaf mute, likes to keep his distance from the general public. He knows Bunny would likely choose an isolated house in the swamps east of town, where no one would likely bother him, so he starts his search there.
As he begins his search, a nosy, violent sheriff’s deputy named Blaze Franklin begins to stalk him. Franklin doesn’t like strangers, or most other people for that matter, and he can’t think of any legitimate reason for a stranger to be poking around the swamps.
Franklin is used to bullying people, and even killing men who show an interest in his girlfriend, Lucille. He expects to give Chet Arnold (Earl) the same treatment. Good luck with that…
As Chet/Earl continues his search for Bunny, his troubles mount. Not only does the local deputy have it out for him, but so do a number of his former criminal associates. They read about the bank robbery, they know how much money was taken (a lot), and the recognized it as the work of a seasoned pro. Now they know that pro is searching the swamps of Florida, and there can be only one reason why.
I won’t give away the plot, except to say that Chet/Earl soon learns why Bunny’s money stopped coming and who was taking it. This is where the book really heats up.
In any crime novel, there’s only so much that can happen. Car chases, shootouts, fights, betrayals. What sets a good book apart from a mediocre one is the telling of the story. This is where Dan Marlowe truly excels. He has an excellent character in Earl, a terse, sharp-eyed narrator who thinks four steps ahead of his enemies and has no fear of anything. The plot never slackens. There are twists in almost every chapter, and Marlowe’s ability to describe action is superb. This book definitely earned its reputation.
Being as much a lover of the genre as I am, I was surprised when I first heard of Marlowe a few years ago that I hadn’t heard of him before. I learned of him after reading Rook, Stephen G. Eoannou’s excellent biography of real-life bank robber Albert Frederick Nussbaum. The actual bank robbery that opens Eoannou’s book is almost a mirror of the one that opens Marlowe’s novel.
Nussbaum was so impressed by the realism of Marlowe’s novel, the two became friends and eventually roommates. After leaving prison, Nussbaum himself became a crime writer.
Marlowe’s Name of the Game is currently published in a single volume with the sequel, One Endless Hour. Without giving anything away, I’ll say the first book ends with a bang that sets up the second. I can’t wait to read part two.
UPDATE - May 19, 2024
Seven years after The Name of the Game is Death, Marlowe followed up with the sequel, One Endless Hour. Chet Arnold, now going by his original name, Earl Drake, is in the prison ward of a Florida state hospital, recovering from third degree burns and pretending to be catatonic to avoid trial.
As the slow days pass, he figures out how to use the greed and sadism or corrupt warden Spider Kern to aid in his escape. I’ll skip the details and say his escape succeeds. I’ll skip the events that go down in Hudson as Earl tries to recover his stolen bank loot.
When things go wrong, Earl goes back into the business of robbing banks, first in Washington, DC and then in Philadelphia. He finds himself trying to carry out an overly complicated plan with some less-than-reliable partners. You can see this one going wrong from a mile away, though the way it goes wrong involves some unexpected twists.
This follow-up is nowhere near as good as the first installment. Much of what made the first book so good was its unrelenting action and the fearlessness and relentlessness of the main character. All that’s gone in book two. Drake is tentative and unsure, while the action halts for long periods of debate.
The plotting is weak too. While the main caper is too far-fetched for any sensible person to attempt, a number of key incidents leading up to it are just too convenient to ring true.
The follow-up is worth a read, but doesn’t have the same bang as the original.
The story opens with Earl Drake and his partner Bunny robbing a bank in Arizona. Things go awry halfway through the job, and Earl shoots several guards before getting shot himself. To make things worse, their getaway driver loses his nerve just as they’re exiting, and he winds up taking a bullet too.
But Earl is a pro and has an iron nerve. He manages a clean getaway and sends Bunny off to Florida with most of the cash. They plan to meet up later, after Earl gets medical treatment and recovers from his gunshot wound. In the meantime, Bunny mails an envelope of cash every now and then to keep Earl afloat.
Until one day the cash stops coming and Earl knows something has happened to Bunny. Time to go to Florida and investigate.
As a kid, Earl developed a deep hatred of bullies and of authority. He also developed an ability to patiently endure the most savage of beatings while coolly plotting his revenge. When three thugs take turns beating the crap out of him in an alley, he warns them that if they don’t kill him, he will track them down and kill them. And he does, patiently and methodically.
The cop who beats him blind in a jail cell suffers the same fate, as does the cop who railroads his friend into a long prison sentence on false charges.
On the long drive from Arizona to Florida, Earl picks up a new license and a new name. He shows up in the small town of Hudson as Chet Arnold, picks up work pruning trees and takes his time sussing out info about his partner, Bunny. He knows that Bunny, a deaf mute, likes to keep his distance from the general public. He knows Bunny would likely choose an isolated house in the swamps east of town, where no one would likely bother him, so he starts his search there.
As he begins his search, a nosy, violent sheriff’s deputy named Blaze Franklin begins to stalk him. Franklin doesn’t like strangers, or most other people for that matter, and he can’t think of any legitimate reason for a stranger to be poking around the swamps.
Franklin is used to bullying people, and even killing men who show an interest in his girlfriend, Lucille. He expects to give Chet Arnold (Earl) the same treatment. Good luck with that…
As Chet/Earl continues his search for Bunny, his troubles mount. Not only does the local deputy have it out for him, but so do a number of his former criminal associates. They read about the bank robbery, they know how much money was taken (a lot), and the recognized it as the work of a seasoned pro. Now they know that pro is searching the swamps of Florida, and there can be only one reason why.
I won’t give away the plot, except to say that Chet/Earl soon learns why Bunny’s money stopped coming and who was taking it. This is where the book really heats up.
In any crime novel, there’s only so much that can happen. Car chases, shootouts, fights, betrayals. What sets a good book apart from a mediocre one is the telling of the story. This is where Dan Marlowe truly excels. He has an excellent character in Earl, a terse, sharp-eyed narrator who thinks four steps ahead of his enemies and has no fear of anything. The plot never slackens. There are twists in almost every chapter, and Marlowe’s ability to describe action is superb. This book definitely earned its reputation.
Being as much a lover of the genre as I am, I was surprised when I first heard of Marlowe a few years ago that I hadn’t heard of him before. I learned of him after reading Rook, Stephen G. Eoannou’s excellent biography of real-life bank robber Albert Frederick Nussbaum. The actual bank robbery that opens Eoannou’s book is almost a mirror of the one that opens Marlowe’s novel.
Nussbaum was so impressed by the realism of Marlowe’s novel, the two became friends and eventually roommates. After leaving prison, Nussbaum himself became a crime writer.
Marlowe’s Name of the Game is currently published in a single volume with the sequel, One Endless Hour. Without giving anything away, I’ll say the first book ends with a bang that sets up the second. I can’t wait to read part two.
UPDATE - May 19, 2024
Seven years after The Name of the Game is Death, Marlowe followed up with the sequel, One Endless Hour. Chet Arnold, now going by his original name, Earl Drake, is in the prison ward of a Florida state hospital, recovering from third degree burns and pretending to be catatonic to avoid trial.
As the slow days pass, he figures out how to use the greed and sadism or corrupt warden Spider Kern to aid in his escape. I’ll skip the details and say his escape succeeds. I’ll skip the events that go down in Hudson as Earl tries to recover his stolen bank loot.
When things go wrong, Earl goes back into the business of robbing banks, first in Washington, DC and then in Philadelphia. He finds himself trying to carry out an overly complicated plan with some less-than-reliable partners. You can see this one going wrong from a mile away, though the way it goes wrong involves some unexpected twists.
This follow-up is nowhere near as good as the first installment. Much of what made the first book so good was its unrelenting action and the fearlessness and relentlessness of the main character. All that’s gone in book two. Drake is tentative and unsure, while the action halts for long periods of debate.
The plotting is weak too. While the main caper is too far-fetched for any sensible person to attempt, a number of key incidents leading up to it are just too convenient to ring true.
The follow-up is worth a read, but doesn’t have the same bang as the original.
June 13, 2020
Wow. If you're into noir this is the peak. Jim Thompson introduced me to this genre but a Twitter friend turned me on to this title. This book is so "realistic" an actual bank robber befriended the author and later lived with him. The main character, who goes by various names, is a brutal, cold blooded killer, but Marlowe actually makes him sympathetic. You get why he is the way he is. Whatever you do, don't mess with his dog. And the other characters are so despicable you want to see him exercise his talents. The prose is tight. The plot moves fast. Enough twists to keep this unstable.
I do have two complaints, however. The cover design and text font. The cover of the edition I had was cartoonish and way off base. It looks like one of the Grateful Dead is driving a hot rob with an engine scoop. Asinine. Okay, don't judge a book by it's cover. So I open it up. The interior is some weird serif heavy font with smushed kerning that was difficult to read. I got used to it but the entire graphic design was just awful. This is the first time I've every complained about a font and this book earned it.
I do have two complaints, however. The cover design and text font. The cover of the edition I had was cartoonish and way off base. It looks like one of the Grateful Dead is driving a hot rob with an engine scoop. Asinine. Okay, don't judge a book by it's cover. So I open it up. The interior is some weird serif heavy font with smushed kerning that was difficult to read. I got used to it but the entire graphic design was just awful. This is the first time I've every complained about a font and this book earned it.
July 8, 2017
This review is for "The Name of the Game Is Death". If you like Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep) and/or Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon) you'll love this book. It is damn near perfect...Dan J. Marlowe's best. Highly recommended.
January 13, 2018
I read the first of the two books in this volume last year and then finished the second in the last two days.. 1/11/18 -1/12/18 really good reads.. I am going to have to get more of the Drake books..
May 9, 2023
Two great hard-boiled novels from the last of the great fifties Gold Medal novelists. Non-stop noir action. Thoroughly original.
December 29, 2020
FUCK YEAH HARDCORE NOIR WRITING. From the golden era in the vein of Jim T.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews