So Fair, So Evil

by Paul Connolly

They wrote about how Dolly died. They said she'd backed the Jaguar up, sat there for a moment in the dreaming summer night, then tramped on the gas and driven herself like a bat out of hell at the huge boulder outside of town. The day I got back I went out to the rock and and I think I scared the cabbie green. I talked to Dolly. I told her I didn't believe a damn rotten word of it. I forgave her everything and swore to her I would make it right. The I got back in the cab and rode toward town with the cold, unique excitement a hunter must feel. Dolly, my wife, I knew had been murdered.

159 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 1955

About the author

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

A pseudonym used by Tom Wicker.

Wicker wrote three Gold Medal paperback originals early in his career using this pseudonym.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

"So Fair, So Evil" is a wonderful, layered crime pulp so deftly crafted that it can hold your attention throughout without almost no action whatsoever. Set in a small Southern town, Huntsville, in 1952 or 1953 (before the Korean War ended), it has a returning Korean War veteran who spent the last two months stateside in an asylum half out of his mind after returning from war. It did not help when he was told that his wife, Dolly, ran her car into a giant boulder, perishing forever. Frank, though, does not believe that beautiful Dolly, winner of every beauty contest ever invented, life of every ball ever held, killed herself. Suicide simply did not run in her veins. So, he's going back to the Hundred Mile estate, from which the Thompson family has lorded over the town of Huntsville since the Civil War era, and, though he was never ever good enough for them, he's going to shake the truth out of them or die doing it.

What follows is a few days on the estate where the rich and privileged play golf and tennis, lounge by the pool, and drink bourbon. And it's a world no outsider -like Frank who was just an ordinary guy from an ordinary family with an ordinary job - can ever pierce. He is always invited to drink with them, but their noses never stop looking down at him. If only he would accept what is and what ever shall be and just shut the hell up. Why if he would just do that, then by golly, they would put up with him warts and all. After all, Dolly thought he was just fine except when she would leave him and disappear back to the estate for an hour, an evening, a month. Except when she would make him feel small by giving him a Cadillac or hiring a maid.

Wicker, writing as Connolly, just gets it right in this rich portrayal of genteel society and all the snobbery that goes with it. At first, it seems like their are just too many characters, but settle in, it will be a book you just can't put down.

[Edwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

"So Fair, So Evil" is an ambitious Southern Gothic and psychological thriller narrated by main character Frank Sinclair, an engineer and northerner, who marries into a rich, old-wealth family in the American Deep South. Frank goes off to the Korean War and ends up in a mental hospital where he learns that his wife Dolly has been killed in an apparent suicide. Determined to prove that his wife was actually murdered, Frank returns home causing an enormous disruption amongst the large cast of idle rich folks populating the grand Southern family estate. These pretentious snobs never accepted Frank as one of their own, and they alienate him, perhaps to distance themselves from his lowly heritage, or to keep hidden the deep secrets that they themselves harbor. The novel does a nice job of portraying the rich and powerful families of the mid 20th century American Deep South while providing a good murder mystery. Kinds of reminds me of a Jim Thompson story as if written by Wiliam Faulkner.

[Peter Ackerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cutting Edge Books, a publisher reprints offers this Noir treat by Paul Connolly; So Fair So Evil. Originally published in 1956, the story is equally compelling and haunting as we follow the protagonist, Frank as he immerses himself back into a family, he married into to determined what really happened around the death of his wife, Dolly.

Frank never fit in with this multi-generation, historic, wealthy Virginia family, but that did not matter to Dolly. She accepted and loved him, while certain family members and associates disliked, or barely put up with him. The family always felt Dolly would return to her senses, and though things were less than perfect between Frank and her, he finally determines to come to terms with her death by answering if the crash she was involved in was truly suicide or murder?

The plot has a tone that is moody, as it slowly develops. Those used to a faster paced novel might want to think about relaxing into this one. In each chapter with new events over the fourth of July weekend, as well as flashbacks the reader, along with Frank, make sense around what occurred that faithful evening when Dolly was killed. Engaging with the book, if only for the reveals in the final chapter are well worth the wait.

At first the story read as if Philip Marlowe was thrust into an Agatha Christie book, and that personally did not work for me. Yet sticking with it, I discovered that the author had me along on a very accessible read, that led to a magnificent conclusion. If you like noir, family sagas, or even carefully paced mysteries with a great payoff, then I heartily recommend to you Paul Connolly’s So Fair, So Evil.