Cut Me In

by Jack Karney

Coley Walsh is a rookie cop who wants it all. He wants the money, he wants the fancy car, he wants the high living. And more than anything, he wants Mille. To get what he wants, he first has to figure out how to get in on the take and start making some real money. But that isn’t enough. Coley decides to go up against the Syndicate itself.That’s when his conscience starts to get in the way. Because once Coley confronts and joins the Syndicate, he has to decide which is more important—the money or his friendship with old Mr. Cantor, the one man who stands between the Syndicate and the garment district. Cantor is Mille’s boss and the Cantors her only family here in the city. And the Syndicate wants him dead.

Mass Market Paperback

Published November 1, 2021

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cut Me In (1959), cover art in both the Pyramid original and the later Black Gat edition (Dec. 2020) by Ernest Chiriacka, is a bad cop on the take story that eventually has you rooting for the guy you thought was no-good bum just out to get his cut. Coley Walsh got a bum rap out of life with his wife Francine dying in a car crash while driving with her boyfriend and Coley’s young son becoming a cripple in the process. As the story opens though, a new chapter is opening for Coley who is now a rookie police officer and is out to make time with Miller Raft, a gorgeous model who is also saying a millionaire businessman.

Coley is nothing if not persistent with both Mille and what he sees as an opportunity to use his badge to collect a piece of the action. You see two sides of Coley throughly the novel. On one side, Coley is that wide-eyed good guy you think aspires to be a policeman. On the other hand, he is a dirty cop, one with his fingers in every pie. These two personas clash as Coley tries to protect those close to him from the Syndicate and ultimately when the Syndicate responds by trying to break Coley, he realizes no one sees him as anything but another guy in the grift and no one has his back. It then becomes a story of one guy (and maybe one lady) standing up to the criminal elements and barely managing to survive.

Karney sets this one in New York City and does a great job of bringing the sights and sounds of the city to life, right down to the dime landing in the counter in payment fir a chocolate egg cream in a candy store.

[tortoise dreams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Our hero is a dirty cop who's so greedy he becomes too tainted even for other dirty cops when he joins the Syndicate. He happily does their evil work until a friend is threatened, and then endangers everyone around him, while whining that no one (all those he's brought to harm) will help him. The only way out of the mess he's created for himself is to have his girlfriend risk her life by venturing into the belly of the beast to save him. A well-written, realistic thriller from 1959, but a protagonist who deserves to be behind bars. An anti-anti-hero. Number 29 from the intriguing Black Gat Books series. Stark House Press is doing a wonderful job of resurrecting innumerable noir, hardboiled, domestic suspense, and other mystery and crime novels from the mid-1900s. Well worth a look for those so inclined.

[Joe Nicholl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cut Me In by Jack Karney (1959, 188 pgs., Kindle $4.99) is about a cop who quickly makes his way to Detective when he gets a great idea...he's going to kick the Syndicate out of the dress making district in NYC and take over the 'protection' business. Yeah, right! This book moves right along with a lot going on...too much in fact for 188 pgs. Plenty of shoot 'em up though to spice it up...3.0 outta 5.0....

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoy!

I love paperback pulp fiction from the fifties and Cut Me in is an excellent example of the genre , originally published by Pyramid books in 1959. A fast pace novel of , cops , the syndicate, and the love of a good woman. Read it, you’ll enjoy it. And thanks to Stark House Press for bringing it back in print.