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River Girl
Now here is Charles Williams' River Girl, in every way a giant of a book--the story of a man and a woman who met and knew instantly that not all the world would tear them apart.
River Girl, first published in 1951 as "The Catfish Triangle," is a book that shares some similarities with Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice.
Down in swamp country a deputy sheriff meets and falls in love with a young lass, but her husband stands in the way... for a time.
River Girl, first published in 1951 as "The Catfish Triangle," is a book that shares some similarities with Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice.
Down in swamp country a deputy sheriff meets and falls in love with a young lass, but her husband stands in the way... for a time.
224 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1951
2 people are currently reading
143 people want to read
About the author
Charles Williams
33 books100 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Please see: Charles Williams
Charles Williams was one of the preeminent authors of American crime fiction. Born in Texas, he dropped out of high school to enlist in the US Merchant Marine, serving for ten years (1929-1939) before leaving to work in the electronics industry. He was a radio inspector during the war years at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington state. At the end of World War II, Williams began writing fiction while living in San Francisco. The success of his backwoods noir Hill Girl (1951) allowed him to quit his job and write fulltime.
Williams’s clean and somewhat casual narrative style distinguishes his novels—which range from hard-boiled, small-town noir to suspense thrillers set at sea and in the Deep South. Although originally published by pulp fiction houses, his work won great critical acclaim, with Hell Hath No Fury (1953) becoming the first paperback original to be reviewed by legendary New York Times critic Anthony Boucher. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, such as Dead Calm (published in 1963) and Don’t Just Stand There! (published in 1966), for which Williams wrote the screenplay.
After the death of his wife Lasca (m. 1939) from cancer in 1972, Williams purchased property on the California-Oregon border where he lived alone for a time in a trailer. After relocating to Los Angeles, Williams committed suicide in his apartment in the Van Nuys neighborhood in early April 1975. Williams had been depressed since the death of his wife, and his emotional state worsened as sales of his books declined when stand alone thrillers began to lose popularity in the early 70s. He was survived by a daughter, Alison.
Please see: Charles Williams
Charles Williams was one of the preeminent authors of American crime fiction. Born in Texas, he dropped out of high school to enlist in the US Merchant Marine, serving for ten years (1929-1939) before leaving to work in the electronics industry. He was a radio inspector during the war years at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington state. At the end of World War II, Williams began writing fiction while living in San Francisco. The success of his backwoods noir Hill Girl (1951) allowed him to quit his job and write fulltime.
Williams’s clean and somewhat casual narrative style distinguishes his novels—which range from hard-boiled, small-town noir to suspense thrillers set at sea and in the Deep South. Although originally published by pulp fiction houses, his work won great critical acclaim, with Hell Hath No Fury (1953) becoming the first paperback original to be reviewed by legendary New York Times critic Anthony Boucher. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, such as Dead Calm (published in 1963) and Don’t Just Stand There! (published in 1966), for which Williams wrote the screenplay.
After the death of his wife Lasca (m. 1939) from cancer in 1972, Williams purchased property on the California-Oregon border where he lived alone for a time in a trailer. After relocating to Los Angeles, Williams committed suicide in his apartment in the Van Nuys neighborhood in early April 1975. Williams had been depressed since the death of his wife, and his emotional state worsened as sales of his books declined when stand alone thrillers began to lose popularity in the early 70s. He was survived by a daughter, Alison.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
October 20, 2019
Excelente novela. Aunque, a veces, la trama fluctúa y pierde ritmo, está muy bien escrita y consigue que vivas al mismo tiempo que los personajes, que sufras y disfrutes con ellos. A ratos, fuerza la acción para que cumpla lo que él pretende y se nota, pero no importa porqué lo hace bien y es coherente.
Sus personajes y ambientes son geniales. Se salen del estereotipo chandleriano al estilo Los Angeles y el detective duro y sarcástico con la femme fatale. Williams crea ambientes más pequeños y personajes más normales que se ven envueltos en historias pequeñas pero muy dramáticas. En este caso, se trata de un ayudante de sheriff asqueado de su trabajo y de su jefe que, por casualidad, se encuentra con una mujer casada a la que conoce desde pequeño. Y a partir de aquí se desarrolla la acción.
Lo narra todo muy bien, aunque me pierdo en la descripción de los pantanos. Llega un punto que me pierdo entre tanta maleza.
Su otra novela, "El Arrecife Del Escorpión", me gustó un poco más.
Salvando las distancias, es un autor que me gusta tanto como Chandler. Y ya es mucho decir porqué hace muy poco tiempo que lo descubrí. Desgraciadamente, es muy desconocido.
Excellent novel. Although, sometimes, the plot fluctuates and loses rhythm, it is very well written and makes you live at the same time as the characters, that you suffer and enjoy with them. At times, it forces the action to fulfill what he intends and it shows, but it doesn't matter because he does it well and is consistent.
His characters and environments are great. They get out of Chandlerian stereotype about Los Angeles and the hard and sarcastic detective with the femme fatale. Williams creates smaller environments and more normal characters that are involved in small but very dramatic stories. In this case, it is a sheriff's assistant disgusted by his work and his boss who, by chance, meets a married woman whom he has known since childhood. And from here the action develops.
It tells everything very well, although I get lost in the description of the swamps. There comes a point that I get lost in so much weed.
His other novel, "The Scorpion Reef", I liked a little more.
Saving distances, he is an author that I like as much as Chandler. And it is a lot to say because I discovered it very recently. Unfortunately, it is very unknown.
Sus personajes y ambientes son geniales. Se salen del estereotipo chandleriano al estilo Los Angeles y el detective duro y sarcástico con la femme fatale. Williams crea ambientes más pequeños y personajes más normales que se ven envueltos en historias pequeñas pero muy dramáticas. En este caso, se trata de un ayudante de sheriff asqueado de su trabajo y de su jefe que, por casualidad, se encuentra con una mujer casada a la que conoce desde pequeño. Y a partir de aquí se desarrolla la acción.
Lo narra todo muy bien, aunque me pierdo en la descripción de los pantanos. Llega un punto que me pierdo entre tanta maleza.
Su otra novela, "El Arrecife Del Escorpión", me gustó un poco más.
Salvando las distancias, es un autor que me gusta tanto como Chandler. Y ya es mucho decir porqué hace muy poco tiempo que lo descubrí. Desgraciadamente, es muy desconocido.
Excellent novel. Although, sometimes, the plot fluctuates and loses rhythm, it is very well written and makes you live at the same time as the characters, that you suffer and enjoy with them. At times, it forces the action to fulfill what he intends and it shows, but it doesn't matter because he does it well and is consistent.
His characters and environments are great. They get out of Chandlerian stereotype about Los Angeles and the hard and sarcastic detective with the femme fatale. Williams creates smaller environments and more normal characters that are involved in small but very dramatic stories. In this case, it is a sheriff's assistant disgusted by his work and his boss who, by chance, meets a married woman whom he has known since childhood. And from here the action develops.
It tells everything very well, although I get lost in the description of the swamps. There comes a point that I get lost in so much weed.
His other novel, "The Scorpion Reef", I liked a little more.
Saving distances, he is an author that I like as much as Chandler. And it is a lot to say because I discovered it very recently. Unfortunately, it is very unknown.
October 12, 2019
Madox, a wandering car salesman in Charles Williams best novel The Hot Spot(1953) stops just short of telling his boss that he is not going to run an errand when he sees the woman (the innocent Miss Harper) with whom he is supposed to run the errand. Later, Madox decides that he is going to rob a bank so that he could escape the rat race.
Lee Scarborough in A Touch of Death(1954) is a failed athlete, real estate agent and car salesman. He is just about to leave for Saudi Arabia as part of a construction crew when he is offered a role in a devious plan to recover some stolen money by a beautiful woman. He decides he would probably not be able to take the heat in Saudi Arabia.
But of all the flawed and wounded first-person narrative heroes created by Charles Williams, Jack Marshall in River Girl (1951) is my favorite.
Jack Marshall is a hard drinking world weary deputy sheriff in a small American town. He has a wife who is a spendthrift. He has a tough job keeping his corrupt boss' brothel from being shut down by religious fundamentalists. He has bills to pay. He keeps thinking about his father whose reputation he cannot seem to live up to. He reminisces about the opportunities he has squandered.
And then he runs into a beautiful woman in a secluded hut when he is off fishing in the swamps (after his wife leaves on an expensive beach holiday which they cannot afford). But the woman is married and she seems to be hiding something about her strange husband.
Marshall is yet another Charles Williams hero who gets himself involved in a ridiculous plan involving enormous risks on a pure impulse. Like other Williams novels, the capricious plans are inspired by the lure of a beautiful woman and an opportunity to escape the ordinary 9 to 5 grind (like Madox and Lee Scarborough)
But in some ways, River Girl is not your average crime fiction novel. Sure it has its share of twists and thrills. But it is primarily about a man who has wasted his life and wants to start over. He hates himself so much, he is even willing to kill himself off to assume a new identity:
"You remember Jack Marshall? I thought. Big fellow, lived around here a long time. Quite a football player in high school. Daddy was a district judge, but he never did amount to much. Got to be a deputy sheriff and was killed somewhere in a swamp somewhere. Never did find his body.
Marshall? Jack Marshall? Name sounds familiar. What ever became of him anyway?"
So Jack embarks on this ridiculous endeavor to start over with a woman who loves him. We know right from the outset that he is doomed. Williams always foregrounds the inner struggles of his tormented heroes that always point towards an unhappy ending:
"I was conscious of the horrible sensation that I wasn’t just walking in circles in space and time, but that I was actually swinging around the steep black sides of some enormous whirlpool and sliding always towards the center."
Lee Scarborough in "A Touch of Death" drags himself over the coals because he knows deep in his heart that Madelon Butler is going to get the better of him.
Williams writing is very imagistic. Look at the first lines of the novel:
"It was three in the afternoon and hot. Tar was boiling out of the black-top paving around the square and heat waves shimmered above the sidewalks".
It conjures up images from American movies of the 60s and 70s set in small towns (like The Chase or The Last Picture Show).
Like I wrote in my review of "A Touch of Death" Williams seems to know a lot about fishing, sailing and water bodies. He lends weight to his characters and settings through long and detailed descriptions of fishing and the swamps.
My review is not a complete endorsement of this novel. Like in "A Touch of Death", there are some interesting plot points that Williams could have developed into something spectacular. But instead he squanders them away for the final car chase.
But I liked it a lot. "River Girl" is now my second favorite Charles Williams novel after "The Hot Spot".
Lee Scarborough in A Touch of Death(1954) is a failed athlete, real estate agent and car salesman. He is just about to leave for Saudi Arabia as part of a construction crew when he is offered a role in a devious plan to recover some stolen money by a beautiful woman. He decides he would probably not be able to take the heat in Saudi Arabia.
But of all the flawed and wounded first-person narrative heroes created by Charles Williams, Jack Marshall in River Girl (1951) is my favorite.
Jack Marshall is a hard drinking world weary deputy sheriff in a small American town. He has a wife who is a spendthrift. He has a tough job keeping his corrupt boss' brothel from being shut down by religious fundamentalists. He has bills to pay. He keeps thinking about his father whose reputation he cannot seem to live up to. He reminisces about the opportunities he has squandered.
And then he runs into a beautiful woman in a secluded hut when he is off fishing in the swamps (after his wife leaves on an expensive beach holiday which they cannot afford). But the woman is married and she seems to be hiding something about her strange husband.
Marshall is yet another Charles Williams hero who gets himself involved in a ridiculous plan involving enormous risks on a pure impulse. Like other Williams novels, the capricious plans are inspired by the lure of a beautiful woman and an opportunity to escape the ordinary 9 to 5 grind (like Madox and Lee Scarborough)
But in some ways, River Girl is not your average crime fiction novel. Sure it has its share of twists and thrills. But it is primarily about a man who has wasted his life and wants to start over. He hates himself so much, he is even willing to kill himself off to assume a new identity:
"You remember Jack Marshall? I thought. Big fellow, lived around here a long time. Quite a football player in high school. Daddy was a district judge, but he never did amount to much. Got to be a deputy sheriff and was killed somewhere in a swamp somewhere. Never did find his body.
Marshall? Jack Marshall? Name sounds familiar. What ever became of him anyway?"
So Jack embarks on this ridiculous endeavor to start over with a woman who loves him. We know right from the outset that he is doomed. Williams always foregrounds the inner struggles of his tormented heroes that always point towards an unhappy ending:
"I was conscious of the horrible sensation that I wasn’t just walking in circles in space and time, but that I was actually swinging around the steep black sides of some enormous whirlpool and sliding always towards the center."
Lee Scarborough in "A Touch of Death" drags himself over the coals because he knows deep in his heart that Madelon Butler is going to get the better of him.
Williams writing is very imagistic. Look at the first lines of the novel:
"It was three in the afternoon and hot. Tar was boiling out of the black-top paving around the square and heat waves shimmered above the sidewalks".
It conjures up images from American movies of the 60s and 70s set in small towns (like The Chase or The Last Picture Show).
Like I wrote in my review of "A Touch of Death" Williams seems to know a lot about fishing, sailing and water bodies. He lends weight to his characters and settings through long and detailed descriptions of fishing and the swamps.
My review is not a complete endorsement of this novel. Like in "A Touch of Death", there are some interesting plot points that Williams could have developed into something spectacular. But instead he squanders them away for the final car chase.
But I liked it a lot. "River Girl" is now my second favorite Charles Williams novel after "The Hot Spot".
July 15, 2013
Wonderful Gold Medal paperback original downloaded from Munsey's e-books site. Typos abound per usual for Munsey's but nothing can ruin this classic suspense-thriller about a small town deputy sheriff who falls for the wife of a dangerous escaped convict living down in the almost impenetable swamp. You know everyone concerned is doomed from the second or third chapter but it doesn't stop the thrills or decrease the pulse pounding suspense.
Recommended!
Recommended!
June 5, 2008
This is a four-star Charles Williams novel puffed up (or down, depending on your point of view) into a three-star Charles Williams novel. I would be curious to know which came first: Williams' production of a manuscript 50% longer than his first two books or his assignment to produce a Gold Medal Giant. My suspicion is the latter. Unfortunately, given an extra 75-100 pages to work with, Williams does not find much to do with the additional space. His obvious choices would have been to build a more intricate plot (how about doing something with the narrator's wife, who wanders off stage at the beginning of the book and never reappears?) or to create more nuanced characters (how about fuller backstories for the major players so that their behavior is more believable?). Instead, the plot dawdles more, and the narrator is prone to long, earnest monologues. A squandered opportunity.
July 6, 2019
COUNTDOWN: Mid-20th Century North American Crime
BOOK 113 (of 250)
HOOK=4 stars: "Well, it's gone full circle.... That's where it came from-a girl on a bed" thinks Marshall. He's a cop on the take as he hands an envelope of whore house pay-off money to his almost naked wife lying in bed. There is much that might be going on here, as there is a bad cop in a bad relationship. But the pay-off money going to a wife?
PACE=2: Slow-going, and much too much information about lake fishing, for 2 stars. There is a rather fast, final section to pull it all together, but it doesn't make up for the rather lazy start.
PLOT=4: Standard for the genre as a married man falls for a married woman. There are some very good twists that logically take us back to the odd opening bait from the author.
CHARACTERS=3: Jack Marshal is a semi-bad cop. His woman, Doris (River Girl), is smart, and memorable as she rises from the lake in a swim suit (think Ursula Andress or Halle Berry-Bond girls doing the same thing) giving Jack his first look at her. Jack is instantly lost, for good and to a lady far stronger and smarter than he can imagine.
ATMOSPHERE/PLACE=4: "Tar was boiling out of the black-top paving...Abbie's hotel (bordello, rather) was out on Railroad Street, toward the planing mill and freight depot, it was a run down section...full of cheap beer joints." This is a small, southern American town roasting in summer heat. River Girl lives in a similarly run down lake fishing shack, bait stores nearby. This feels like James Lee Burke/Robicheaux territory.
SUMMARY: 3.4 overall. And this also feels like James Cain/Postman territory but with extra layers of intrigue. A far better book than the first by this author I read, "Nothing In Her Way."
BOOK 113 (of 250)
HOOK=4 stars: "Well, it's gone full circle.... That's where it came from-a girl on a bed" thinks Marshall. He's a cop on the take as he hands an envelope of whore house pay-off money to his almost naked wife lying in bed. There is much that might be going on here, as there is a bad cop in a bad relationship. But the pay-off money going to a wife?
PACE=2: Slow-going, and much too much information about lake fishing, for 2 stars. There is a rather fast, final section to pull it all together, but it doesn't make up for the rather lazy start.
PLOT=4: Standard for the genre as a married man falls for a married woman. There are some very good twists that logically take us back to the odd opening bait from the author.
CHARACTERS=3: Jack Marshal is a semi-bad cop. His woman, Doris (River Girl), is smart, and memorable as she rises from the lake in a swim suit (think Ursula Andress or Halle Berry-Bond girls doing the same thing) giving Jack his first look at her. Jack is instantly lost, for good and to a lady far stronger and smarter than he can imagine.
ATMOSPHERE/PLACE=4: "Tar was boiling out of the black-top paving...Abbie's hotel (bordello, rather) was out on Railroad Street, toward the planing mill and freight depot, it was a run down section...full of cheap beer joints." This is a small, southern American town roasting in summer heat. River Girl lives in a similarly run down lake fishing shack, bait stores nearby. This feels like James Lee Burke/Robicheaux territory.
SUMMARY: 3.4 overall. And this also feels like James Cain/Postman territory but with extra layers of intrigue. A far better book than the first by this author I read, "Nothing In Her Way."
July 14, 2017
“River Girl” is one terrific, top-notch piece of fiction. It reads smoothly and easily and is deceptively good. It is a southern noir piece taking place in and around a small Southern town and a swamp around the town. The narrator, Jack, is a corrupt Southern Deputy Sheriff who is stuck in an unhappy marriage with a woman who barely makes an appearance in the book, but who only seems to want money and, at that, more money than the poor deputy makes. “Louise was very pretty, a taffy blonde with wide, green eyes and a stubborn round chin.” But, their lives were constant fights and endless bickering over money.
Jack goes around town, collecting for his boss from poolhalls, gambling establishments, and brothels. They seem to spend more time drinking and collecting envelopes of money than actually doing much in the way of law enforcement.
Jack and the sheriff are constantly on the watch for getting caught in this graft, concerned that a grand jury will be impaneled and that they will have to flee. He is bitter, unhappy, and lonely and often reminisces about growing up in the town, playing on the fifth-grade football team and having a childhood crush on a girl named Doris or Dorothy. “At night,” Jack “used to lie awake and rescue her from burning buildings and capsized boats and bullies big enough to be in the seventh grade.”
That all changes one afternoon when Jack takes the afternoon off and heads out to do some fishing for a few days. While on the lake, deep in the swamp, he spots a guy who seems a little out of place – his accent isn’t right. Jack also spots the man’s wife- a barefoot young lady dressed in a shapeless oversized garment and with her gorgeous hacked off as if with a knife. Doris takes his breath away. He watches her, trying not to stare, “conscious of the crazy thought that she could be modeling a bathing suit instead of walking across a backwoods clearing.” When he got to understand her better, he realized that “Loneliness was driving her mad.” She had been living in the swamp here in a shack on the water for years, seeing no one but the husband, who barely left the shack either. They had been on the run from someone or something for five years, but she didn’t know what and was afraid to find out. Of course, Jack can’t put this girl out of his mind and couldn’t stay away from her, whether they were each married or not.
Jack explains that “Even before you will admit to yourself that you are a criminal, . . .you begin to act like one without conscious thought.” Soon, he has to get Doris away from this beast of a husband and save her from this swamp life. He also has to escape from the noose tightening around his neck with the grand jury peering into the graft he has been involved with.
Of course, they can’t just waltz off into the sunset. That would be too easy. He sticks out like a sore thumb. Doris can’t blend into the herd with her looks. She might as well be “leading a couple of pandas on a leash.”
This is a love story and a man on the run story through the treacherous Southern swamps. There’s also a dangerous femme fatale on the loose in addition to sweet Doris -- a thrill-chasing girl who will drive one hundred miles an hour through small towns and be ready to leave on a moment’s notice. There’s murder here and betrayal and distrust and desperation.
This is a fantastic piece of pulp work that is worth reading more than once. It’s that good. Just like all this pulp stories, as the reader, you feel Jack’s agony as he sinks deeper and deeper into the quagmire and can’t figure his way out.
Jack goes around town, collecting for his boss from poolhalls, gambling establishments, and brothels. They seem to spend more time drinking and collecting envelopes of money than actually doing much in the way of law enforcement.
Jack and the sheriff are constantly on the watch for getting caught in this graft, concerned that a grand jury will be impaneled and that they will have to flee. He is bitter, unhappy, and lonely and often reminisces about growing up in the town, playing on the fifth-grade football team and having a childhood crush on a girl named Doris or Dorothy. “At night,” Jack “used to lie awake and rescue her from burning buildings and capsized boats and bullies big enough to be in the seventh grade.”
That all changes one afternoon when Jack takes the afternoon off and heads out to do some fishing for a few days. While on the lake, deep in the swamp, he spots a guy who seems a little out of place – his accent isn’t right. Jack also spots the man’s wife- a barefoot young lady dressed in a shapeless oversized garment and with her gorgeous hacked off as if with a knife. Doris takes his breath away. He watches her, trying not to stare, “conscious of the crazy thought that she could be modeling a bathing suit instead of walking across a backwoods clearing.” When he got to understand her better, he realized that “Loneliness was driving her mad.” She had been living in the swamp here in a shack on the water for years, seeing no one but the husband, who barely left the shack either. They had been on the run from someone or something for five years, but she didn’t know what and was afraid to find out. Of course, Jack can’t put this girl out of his mind and couldn’t stay away from her, whether they were each married or not.
Jack explains that “Even before you will admit to yourself that you are a criminal, . . .you begin to act like one without conscious thought.” Soon, he has to get Doris away from this beast of a husband and save her from this swamp life. He also has to escape from the noose tightening around his neck with the grand jury peering into the graft he has been involved with.
Of course, they can’t just waltz off into the sunset. That would be too easy. He sticks out like a sore thumb. Doris can’t blend into the herd with her looks. She might as well be “leading a couple of pandas on a leash.”
This is a love story and a man on the run story through the treacherous Southern swamps. There’s also a dangerous femme fatale on the loose in addition to sweet Doris -- a thrill-chasing girl who will drive one hundred miles an hour through small towns and be ready to leave on a moment’s notice. There’s murder here and betrayal and distrust and desperation.
This is a fantastic piece of pulp work that is worth reading more than once. It’s that good. Just like all this pulp stories, as the reader, you feel Jack’s agony as he sinks deeper and deeper into the quagmire and can’t figure his way out.
September 2, 2020
A cop falls hopelessly for a downtrodden woman and will stop at nothing to get her.
'I was center on the fifth grade football team and in love with a girl named Doris or Dorothy. At night I used to lie awake and rescue her from burning buildings and capsized boats and bullies big enough to be in the seventh grade.'
The best scenes in this 1951 hardboiled noir are those between the two blindly besotted protagonists who sink ever deeper in typically desperate noir fashion. Unfortunately the rest felt very padded, especially the slow and contrived middle section, which I just wasn’t accepting and so couldn’t get wrapped up in.
This is my first read of this highly regarded hardboiled writer and I do like his smooth and easy style. I’ve got about a dozen of his books and my gut instinct is that there are many pleasures in store for the future. I just didn’t take to this one as much as I initially expected. I like my noir a tad tighter, and shorter. I read this on a Kindle so I was getting percentages. Amazon tells me that this book is only 154 pages long, which I find hard to believe. Don’t get me wrong, there’s enjoyment to be had here; but I found it very stretched.
'I was center on the fifth grade football team and in love with a girl named Doris or Dorothy. At night I used to lie awake and rescue her from burning buildings and capsized boats and bullies big enough to be in the seventh grade.'
The best scenes in this 1951 hardboiled noir are those between the two blindly besotted protagonists who sink ever deeper in typically desperate noir fashion. Unfortunately the rest felt very padded, especially the slow and contrived middle section, which I just wasn’t accepting and so couldn’t get wrapped up in.
This is my first read of this highly regarded hardboiled writer and I do like his smooth and easy style. I’ve got about a dozen of his books and my gut instinct is that there are many pleasures in store for the future. I just didn’t take to this one as much as I initially expected. I like my noir a tad tighter, and shorter. I read this on a Kindle so I was getting percentages. Amazon tells me that this book is only 154 pages long, which I find hard to believe. Don’t get me wrong, there’s enjoyment to be had here; but I found it very stretched.
October 12, 2012
Deputy Jack Marshall's life is a mess. His boss, the Sheriff is totally corrupt and about to get caught. His wife is spending money like there's no tomorrow, and all he wants to do is get up to the lake for some fishing. On his trip he spots a young gorgeous woman swimming, they meet, and she's married to a bad guy who is on the run from something. Their attraction, as it does in these kinds of books, spins the world out of control for Jack.
I enjoyed the book quite a bit; the characters were memorable if sometimes they did things a bit too fast, as often happens in these books. People fall in so far in love after a single encounter that they will do nearly anything to stay with the person they hardly know (in this book, it doesn't just happen to the titular river girl). The book sort of dragged for me at the end, as the action seemed a bit repetitious, though you sort of needed it to get to the end point of the book, which was no less gripping because of its typical noir inevitability.
I love it that you can buy these things for the Kindle for about a buck on Amazon. But it's also really easy to download tons of stuff from the source, http://www.munseys.com.
I enjoyed the book quite a bit; the characters were memorable if sometimes they did things a bit too fast, as often happens in these books. People fall in so far in love after a single encounter that they will do nearly anything to stay with the person they hardly know (in this book, it doesn't just happen to the titular river girl). The book sort of dragged for me at the end, as the action seemed a bit repetitious, though you sort of needed it to get to the end point of the book, which was no less gripping because of its typical noir inevitability.
I love it that you can buy these things for the Kindle for about a buck on Amazon. But it's also really easy to download tons of stuff from the source, http://www.munseys.com.
July 9, 2023
This is the story of Jack Marshall, who is working as a deputy sheriff in a small southern corrupt US town. Though Jack didn’t set out to become corrupt, it came to him gradually, the effect of those around him, especially Sheriff Buford. His life is spiralling out of control, and he knows he needs to escape it. Disgusted by his job, and frustrated by his wife’s unreasonable demands, he takes off fishing, and that’s when he meets Doris the river girl, living in a primitive shed, and seems to be hiding from someone, or something.
Williams’s plots are always terrific, but this one may well be his best. His protagonists usually have a hard time, and Marshall, a classic noir anti-hero, is no exception.
When it was first published by Gold Medal in 1951, with that tremendous cover, it was more expensive than their other books, 35 cents as opposed to a quarter, perhaps because it was a bit
longer. Even in those days, it was a bargain.
Williams’s plots are always terrific, but this one may well be his best. His protagonists usually have a hard time, and Marshall, a classic noir anti-hero, is no exception.
When it was first published by Gold Medal in 1951, with that tremendous cover, it was more expensive than their other books, 35 cents as opposed to a quarter, perhaps because it was a bit
longer. Even in those days, it was a bargain.
January 17, 2026
"You know why I don't ask him to send somebody else."
"Yes, it's nice, isn't it?"
"It's being done," I said, feeling too rotten to argue.
"Maybe she'd raise your cut if you went down there and worked as a bouncer or something after hours."
"Maybe so. You want me to ask her?"
"And your father was a judge."
"You tried to buy anything with that lately?" I asked.
.
"You never do any business here, do you? Except this."
"No," I said. "What the hell, you think I'm crazy?"
"Cut it out, Jack. My girls are clean. You can take my word for it."
"Yeah, I know. And they'll give you your money back if a parachute doesn’t open, too.”
"All right," I said. "I'll quit going down there and to all the other places. We’ll live on my salary."
"Your salary!"
"Well, there you are."
"You could have had Buford's job if you'd run against him last time."
I sat down in a chair and lit a cigarette, forgetting about the shower."! couldn't beat Buford, and you know it. He's been sheriff for twelve years. And I haven't got his personality. Nobody in the county could beat him."
"You were in the war."
"Who wasn't?"
"Buford," she said impatiently.
"He was over draft age. I'm telling you, if I'd run against him I would just have been beaten and then I'd be out of a job completely. I thought about it plenty, but it can't be done. He's just one of those people. Even people who know he's crooked like him."
It was the lean, bony face of a man somewhere in his forties, with haze-gray eyes faintly bloodshot, as if he had not slept, and full of an infinite sad tiredness like those of a man who has been looking for too long at something he doesn't like.
It wasn't the blank emptiness of stupidity or the quietness of inner serenity—there was some thing about it that made you think of the dangerous and unnatural surface calm of a city under martial law.
In a few minutes the door opened and she came out with the wet suit, which she threw across a clothesline. She had on a shapeless old cotton dress too big for her and hadn't bothered to put on any make-up or comb her hair, and she was barefoot like any backwoods slattern. She couldn't have made herself look any worse if she'd tried, I thought, and got the impression somehow that she had tried.
"All right, knock it off, Mac," I said. "You've had your fun." He paused, with the table pulled back for another swing, and looked around at me. I was still ten feet away, moving toward him. In those things you can never let them see any hesitation or you're a dead duck, but I did n't feel too sure about it. He was as big as I was, or larger, and crazy with rage, and he appeared to be only around twenty, an age when you haven't found out yet that you can be hurt.
"All right," he mumbled. "Ain't no use fightin' laws.”
"You took a hell of a long time finding it out," I grumbled, but glad he was getting some sense at last.
I watched Soames to see what he thought of it, and wondered if he could be taken in by a trick as old as this. He said nothing at all during the raids, and afterward he thanked Buford with a courtesy that equaled Buford's own, but once I saw in his eyes the look of a man who has just drawn the other ace. It made me wonder.
And then I thought of her on the stand and the district attorney tearing her to pieces the way I'd seen them do it. A woman as beautiful as she was, and her husband killed by another man under peculiar circumstances? He'd start to tie it up into a triangle killing before he'd finished looking at her legs.
I dried myself, wrapped the towel around my waist, and went out in the kitchen. Getting a couple of ice cubes out of the refrigerator, I poured a glass half full of bourbon and ran a little water in it. By the time the first two swallows had gone down I could feel myself settling like a punctured balloon. I hadn't realized how taut I'd been now for hours.
She saw me looking around inquiringly. "Mr. Buford is out in the kitchen mixing a drink. He won't let me do it; he says no woman should ever be trusted with a loaded gun or a cocktail shaker.
She said nothing, but the eyes shifted, studying him thoughtfully, and then she shrugged. You got the impression she'd never spent a great deal of time in her life asking permission of anyone, or paying much attention to refusals.
With this thing flaring up and a grand jury investigation a very real possibility, my disappearing the very next day was going to make the long arm of coincidence look as if it had been pulled out at the socket.
"No. Kate and me run down the street. First, Kate called the shurf s office, and then later, when the shurf got here, we run."
I drove around and parked in front of the courthouse and sat there for a minute, trying to think. Cars lazily circled the square, boys out riding with their girl friends; and something about it, maybe the summer night or the hissing sound of tires or the quick, musical laughter of a girl, suddenly made me think of how it had been before I went off to the Army all those years ago in 1942, how it had been to be home from college in the summer, out riding in the Judge's automobile, a Chevrolet somehow forever five years old. God, I thought, that was a long time back.
I turned back and noticed abruptly that Dinah had been watching my face with that speculative interest I had seen in her eyes before. Now that I thought of it, I remembered that every time I had looked around her eyes had been on me, not with anything flirtatious in them, but only with that intense and fascinated interest, as a child might watch grownups getting ready for a hunting trip.
"No," I said. "You haven't looked at all of it yet. I couldn't be running from anything that's going to happen here, because I don't have the faintest idea anything is going to happen. Bernice is gone, Waites has never said a word because they told him not to, the letter is down there where he dropped it,
and I've never seen it."
"Say, you're right!"
"Of course he's right," Dinah said excitedly. "Mr. Marshall, that's good." Buford thought about it for a minute. "But how about this Farrell or Shevlin, or whatever his name is? If he gets caught—"
"There's practically no chance of it," I said, wondering just how much he was guessing now. "The man's no fool, or he couldn't have dodged everybody all these years. And if I get careless and let him give me the slip as I'm bring ing him in, do you think he's going to hang around for me to make a second run at him? He'll be clear out of the country in less than a day. And then, when he reads in the papers that he's being hunted for killing me, he will make himself scarce."
Buford nodded his head approvingly. "You're right about that, too. That would take care of you, all right, but how about me? So I tell them that this deputy of mine who just got himself killed was a crook, that I'm sure he was because he's not here to defend himself, so everybody has a good laugh."
"Yes, I know," I said. "There has to be more to it than your unsupported word. That can be taken care of."
"And there's Louise. Do you think she's going to hold still for it? Obvi ously, in a setup like this, you can't take her with you, unless you expect the grand jury to believe that she was both clairvoyant and a practical believer in suttee. So she'll be here, yelling her head off to get on the stand and deny that you ever took anything."
"Yes. I'm coming to that." I leaned forward in the chair and looked at both of them, and particularly at Dinah. I didn't know how she was going to take this. "But suppose Louise suddenly lost interest in defending my good name, if she has any anyway. Remember, she doesn't know I turned any money over to you. All she knows is that I didn't give it to her. Suppose it turned out that all this time I had been paying the apartment rent and buying Lincoln convertibles for a girl friend named Dinah." Buford put down his drink. "Well, I'll be damned!"
"All right," I said. "You're not kidding. And I'll admit you're devastating, if that's what you're out to prove. You're good-looking and you're smooth, and I'd be eating out of your hand in a minute if it weren't that just at the moment I happen to be looking in the other direction-back over my shoulder.
“Of all the men in the world, why some crooked ex-deputy sheriff on the run from the cops?"
"Well, if you really think we have time for me to draw a diagram, it's because I happen to be crazy about you. Or had you already managed to guess, from some subtle little hint I've given you?" She laughed, but there wasn't much fun in it. "It's just because I want you more than I ever wanted any body or anything in my life. Right from the moment you walked into that living room which the cultured and sardonic Mr. Buford provides for me and his gun collection. Before you opened your mouth and started to talk, I thought you were just some magnificent thug-which wasn't too bad in it-self, for I do have all of a normal, wholesome girl's interest in thugs. And then I began to see a lot of other things about you. Imagination. Daring. And ex citement. Always excitement. Don't you understand, Jack? To me you're the world's only defense against dullness. You're the personification of excitement.”
"The personification of horse saliva," I said roughly. "Stop acting like a high school girl. I told you it didn't fit you. It's not your type."
"This is a nice car," I said, to change the subject and to keep the silence from stretching out.
"Yes," she replied absently, as if it didn't interest her much. "It rides nicely at a hundred and above. Why don't you let it out?"
"On this road?" I asked incredulously.
She grinned. "Why not? It's heavy."
"So's a granite headstone, but I don't want one," I said.
It was a good road that would have been reasonably safe for eighty, in broad daylight, and there was very little traffic, but it was the cows I had the most trouble with. They have a bad habit of finding holes in fences and wandering out onto the roads at night, and I wondered if anybody would be able to separate enough of us from the hamburger to make burial worth while in we found one tonight.
She was right. We picked up a patrol car just after we hit the first of the seventy-five miles of four lane pavement. He never had a chance. Why they didn't set a road block for us, I'll never know. Maybe they'd chased her before and had just decided the best plan was to leave her alone and let her kill herself without any help.
"I don't think you ever have been before. I know it's a funny thing to say, but you seem to be so completely amazed by it, like a little boy."
"Now you're talking as if you were a thousand years older than I am."
"I think I probably am," she said gently.
him. I was conscious of the horrible sensation that I wasn't just walking in circles in space and time, but that I was actually swinging around the steep black sides of some enormous whirlpool and sliding always toward the center.
I came back across the hall and she hadn't moved. "I'm sorry about the car,
Dinah," I said.
"Yes. Isn't it too bad about the car?" She turned away and put her head down on her arms.
I went down the stairs.
I stopped the car right in front of the entrance and got out. It was still dark, and the glaring pool of light from a street lamp was shiny against the leaves of the trees along the street. In one of the windows of the jail a Negro was singing, an insane dirge with something about the Lawd over and over.
I went up and knocked on the door. It opened a little and I shoved my way in. He was alone in the office, a lank, sandy-haired man of about forty-five with a lean, sour face, and tough eyes with a little yellow in them like a goat's. He was wearing wide police-type suspenders to hold up his seersucker pants, but had taken off his shirt on account of the heat.
"I want Mrs. Shevlin," I said. "Open it up." I nodded toward the steel-barred door in the back of the office.
He looked at me and I could see he knew who I was. "Go to hell," he said.
They thought I was crazy now, but they couldn't shoot because we were all so tangled together in a writhing mass of men. I could see the saps swinging in the sunlight, and the blows, and could even feel them faintly, like a gentle rain, painless, unreal, without effect, like something happening in a street riot I was watching in a newsreel.
It slid once more. The rear bumper was in the water now and I could see the whole front end rise a little as it balanced, teetering, ready to plunge.
And then, somehow, my voice came back and I was screaming. "The trunk! The trunk!" I could hear it, going up and up, above the blaring of the juke box and the meaty sound of fists falling and the raggedness of breathing and all the roaring in my ears. "The trunk! Get her out of the trunk!”
.
People come to see me and talk a while and go away. Abbie Bell comes every Sunday morning and brings me a carton of cigarettes. She recovered from the knife wounds and the case against Waites was finally thrown out of court when she didn't press the charges or testify against him. She says she feels sorry for men, and I don't know whether she means Waites, or me, or just all men together.
"You know, Jack," she said once, looking at me through the door, "it just doesn't seem possible to me that in only eleven million years, or however long they've been here, men could have got as stupid about women as they have.
They must have practiced somewhere before. Imagine them trying to do anything to that poor bastard, when someday he might even get that girl back." I never see Buford. He ran. But he'll be back.
They got Dinah's car out of the lake. She came up to see me the day it came back from the garage where they fixed it up, and said she was leaving that afternoon for California. I told her I was sorry about the car, but she just looked at me and said it didn't matter, and after a while she went away.
They brought me down here for the district court. There has been one trial, but something was wrong with it, and there'll be another. Or so the lawyer says. He is very earnest; and explained it all to me, but I guess I wasn't paying much attention. He comes in nearly every day, sometimes alone and sometimes with the other men, the doctors or psychiatrists who are working with him. They ask a lot of questions, tap me on the knees, and try to find out whether I know right from wrong, and go away after taking down a bunch of notes. They are all very earnest and seem to be trying so hard you want to help them.
Somehow, they seem to think it matters.
THE END
"Yes, it's nice, isn't it?"
"It's being done," I said, feeling too rotten to argue.
"Maybe she'd raise your cut if you went down there and worked as a bouncer or something after hours."
"Maybe so. You want me to ask her?"
"And your father was a judge."
"You tried to buy anything with that lately?" I asked.
.
"You never do any business here, do you? Except this."
"No," I said. "What the hell, you think I'm crazy?"
"Cut it out, Jack. My girls are clean. You can take my word for it."
"Yeah, I know. And they'll give you your money back if a parachute doesn’t open, too.”
"All right," I said. "I'll quit going down there and to all the other places. We’ll live on my salary."
"Your salary!"
"Well, there you are."
"You could have had Buford's job if you'd run against him last time."
I sat down in a chair and lit a cigarette, forgetting about the shower."! couldn't beat Buford, and you know it. He's been sheriff for twelve years. And I haven't got his personality. Nobody in the county could beat him."
"You were in the war."
"Who wasn't?"
"Buford," she said impatiently.
"He was over draft age. I'm telling you, if I'd run against him I would just have been beaten and then I'd be out of a job completely. I thought about it plenty, but it can't be done. He's just one of those people. Even people who know he's crooked like him."
It was the lean, bony face of a man somewhere in his forties, with haze-gray eyes faintly bloodshot, as if he had not slept, and full of an infinite sad tiredness like those of a man who has been looking for too long at something he doesn't like.
It wasn't the blank emptiness of stupidity or the quietness of inner serenity—there was some thing about it that made you think of the dangerous and unnatural surface calm of a city under martial law.
In a few minutes the door opened and she came out with the wet suit, which she threw across a clothesline. She had on a shapeless old cotton dress too big for her and hadn't bothered to put on any make-up or comb her hair, and she was barefoot like any backwoods slattern. She couldn't have made herself look any worse if she'd tried, I thought, and got the impression somehow that she had tried.
"All right, knock it off, Mac," I said. "You've had your fun." He paused, with the table pulled back for another swing, and looked around at me. I was still ten feet away, moving toward him. In those things you can never let them see any hesitation or you're a dead duck, but I did n't feel too sure about it. He was as big as I was, or larger, and crazy with rage, and he appeared to be only around twenty, an age when you haven't found out yet that you can be hurt.
"All right," he mumbled. "Ain't no use fightin' laws.”
"You took a hell of a long time finding it out," I grumbled, but glad he was getting some sense at last.
I watched Soames to see what he thought of it, and wondered if he could be taken in by a trick as old as this. He said nothing at all during the raids, and afterward he thanked Buford with a courtesy that equaled Buford's own, but once I saw in his eyes the look of a man who has just drawn the other ace. It made me wonder.
And then I thought of her on the stand and the district attorney tearing her to pieces the way I'd seen them do it. A woman as beautiful as she was, and her husband killed by another man under peculiar circumstances? He'd start to tie it up into a triangle killing before he'd finished looking at her legs.
I dried myself, wrapped the towel around my waist, and went out in the kitchen. Getting a couple of ice cubes out of the refrigerator, I poured a glass half full of bourbon and ran a little water in it. By the time the first two swallows had gone down I could feel myself settling like a punctured balloon. I hadn't realized how taut I'd been now for hours.
She saw me looking around inquiringly. "Mr. Buford is out in the kitchen mixing a drink. He won't let me do it; he says no woman should ever be trusted with a loaded gun or a cocktail shaker.
She said nothing, but the eyes shifted, studying him thoughtfully, and then she shrugged. You got the impression she'd never spent a great deal of time in her life asking permission of anyone, or paying much attention to refusals.
With this thing flaring up and a grand jury investigation a very real possibility, my disappearing the very next day was going to make the long arm of coincidence look as if it had been pulled out at the socket.
"No. Kate and me run down the street. First, Kate called the shurf s office, and then later, when the shurf got here, we run."
I drove around and parked in front of the courthouse and sat there for a minute, trying to think. Cars lazily circled the square, boys out riding with their girl friends; and something about it, maybe the summer night or the hissing sound of tires or the quick, musical laughter of a girl, suddenly made me think of how it had been before I went off to the Army all those years ago in 1942, how it had been to be home from college in the summer, out riding in the Judge's automobile, a Chevrolet somehow forever five years old. God, I thought, that was a long time back.
I turned back and noticed abruptly that Dinah had been watching my face with that speculative interest I had seen in her eyes before. Now that I thought of it, I remembered that every time I had looked around her eyes had been on me, not with anything flirtatious in them, but only with that intense and fascinated interest, as a child might watch grownups getting ready for a hunting trip.
"No," I said. "You haven't looked at all of it yet. I couldn't be running from anything that's going to happen here, because I don't have the faintest idea anything is going to happen. Bernice is gone, Waites has never said a word because they told him not to, the letter is down there where he dropped it,
and I've never seen it."
"Say, you're right!"
"Of course he's right," Dinah said excitedly. "Mr. Marshall, that's good." Buford thought about it for a minute. "But how about this Farrell or Shevlin, or whatever his name is? If he gets caught—"
"There's practically no chance of it," I said, wondering just how much he was guessing now. "The man's no fool, or he couldn't have dodged everybody all these years. And if I get careless and let him give me the slip as I'm bring ing him in, do you think he's going to hang around for me to make a second run at him? He'll be clear out of the country in less than a day. And then, when he reads in the papers that he's being hunted for killing me, he will make himself scarce."
Buford nodded his head approvingly. "You're right about that, too. That would take care of you, all right, but how about me? So I tell them that this deputy of mine who just got himself killed was a crook, that I'm sure he was because he's not here to defend himself, so everybody has a good laugh."
"Yes, I know," I said. "There has to be more to it than your unsupported word. That can be taken care of."
"And there's Louise. Do you think she's going to hold still for it? Obvi ously, in a setup like this, you can't take her with you, unless you expect the grand jury to believe that she was both clairvoyant and a practical believer in suttee. So she'll be here, yelling her head off to get on the stand and deny that you ever took anything."
"Yes. I'm coming to that." I leaned forward in the chair and looked at both of them, and particularly at Dinah. I didn't know how she was going to take this. "But suppose Louise suddenly lost interest in defending my good name, if she has any anyway. Remember, she doesn't know I turned any money over to you. All she knows is that I didn't give it to her. Suppose it turned out that all this time I had been paying the apartment rent and buying Lincoln convertibles for a girl friend named Dinah." Buford put down his drink. "Well, I'll be damned!"
"All right," I said. "You're not kidding. And I'll admit you're devastating, if that's what you're out to prove. You're good-looking and you're smooth, and I'd be eating out of your hand in a minute if it weren't that just at the moment I happen to be looking in the other direction-back over my shoulder.
“Of all the men in the world, why some crooked ex-deputy sheriff on the run from the cops?"
"Well, if you really think we have time for me to draw a diagram, it's because I happen to be crazy about you. Or had you already managed to guess, from some subtle little hint I've given you?" She laughed, but there wasn't much fun in it. "It's just because I want you more than I ever wanted any body or anything in my life. Right from the moment you walked into that living room which the cultured and sardonic Mr. Buford provides for me and his gun collection. Before you opened your mouth and started to talk, I thought you were just some magnificent thug-which wasn't too bad in it-self, for I do have all of a normal, wholesome girl's interest in thugs. And then I began to see a lot of other things about you. Imagination. Daring. And ex citement. Always excitement. Don't you understand, Jack? To me you're the world's only defense against dullness. You're the personification of excitement.”
"The personification of horse saliva," I said roughly. "Stop acting like a high school girl. I told you it didn't fit you. It's not your type."
"This is a nice car," I said, to change the subject and to keep the silence from stretching out.
"Yes," she replied absently, as if it didn't interest her much. "It rides nicely at a hundred and above. Why don't you let it out?"
"On this road?" I asked incredulously.
She grinned. "Why not? It's heavy."
"So's a granite headstone, but I don't want one," I said.
It was a good road that would have been reasonably safe for eighty, in broad daylight, and there was very little traffic, but it was the cows I had the most trouble with. They have a bad habit of finding holes in fences and wandering out onto the roads at night, and I wondered if anybody would be able to separate enough of us from the hamburger to make burial worth while in we found one tonight.
She was right. We picked up a patrol car just after we hit the first of the seventy-five miles of four lane pavement. He never had a chance. Why they didn't set a road block for us, I'll never know. Maybe they'd chased her before and had just decided the best plan was to leave her alone and let her kill herself without any help.
"I don't think you ever have been before. I know it's a funny thing to say, but you seem to be so completely amazed by it, like a little boy."
"Now you're talking as if you were a thousand years older than I am."
"I think I probably am," she said gently.
him. I was conscious of the horrible sensation that I wasn't just walking in circles in space and time, but that I was actually swinging around the steep black sides of some enormous whirlpool and sliding always toward the center.
I came back across the hall and she hadn't moved. "I'm sorry about the car,
Dinah," I said.
"Yes. Isn't it too bad about the car?" She turned away and put her head down on her arms.
I went down the stairs.
I stopped the car right in front of the entrance and got out. It was still dark, and the glaring pool of light from a street lamp was shiny against the leaves of the trees along the street. In one of the windows of the jail a Negro was singing, an insane dirge with something about the Lawd over and over.
I went up and knocked on the door. It opened a little and I shoved my way in. He was alone in the office, a lank, sandy-haired man of about forty-five with a lean, sour face, and tough eyes with a little yellow in them like a goat's. He was wearing wide police-type suspenders to hold up his seersucker pants, but had taken off his shirt on account of the heat.
"I want Mrs. Shevlin," I said. "Open it up." I nodded toward the steel-barred door in the back of the office.
He looked at me and I could see he knew who I was. "Go to hell," he said.
They thought I was crazy now, but they couldn't shoot because we were all so tangled together in a writhing mass of men. I could see the saps swinging in the sunlight, and the blows, and could even feel them faintly, like a gentle rain, painless, unreal, without effect, like something happening in a street riot I was watching in a newsreel.
It slid once more. The rear bumper was in the water now and I could see the whole front end rise a little as it balanced, teetering, ready to plunge.
And then, somehow, my voice came back and I was screaming. "The trunk! The trunk!" I could hear it, going up and up, above the blaring of the juke box and the meaty sound of fists falling and the raggedness of breathing and all the roaring in my ears. "The trunk! Get her out of the trunk!”
.
People come to see me and talk a while and go away. Abbie Bell comes every Sunday morning and brings me a carton of cigarettes. She recovered from the knife wounds and the case against Waites was finally thrown out of court when she didn't press the charges or testify against him. She says she feels sorry for men, and I don't know whether she means Waites, or me, or just all men together.
"You know, Jack," she said once, looking at me through the door, "it just doesn't seem possible to me that in only eleven million years, or however long they've been here, men could have got as stupid about women as they have.
They must have practiced somewhere before. Imagine them trying to do anything to that poor bastard, when someday he might even get that girl back." I never see Buford. He ran. But he'll be back.
They got Dinah's car out of the lake. She came up to see me the day it came back from the garage where they fixed it up, and said she was leaving that afternoon for California. I told her I was sorry about the car, but she just looked at me and said it didn't matter, and after a while she went away.
They brought me down here for the district court. There has been one trial, but something was wrong with it, and there'll be another. Or so the lawyer says. He is very earnest; and explained it all to me, but I guess I wasn't paying much attention. He comes in nearly every day, sometimes alone and sometimes with the other men, the doctors or psychiatrists who are working with him. They ask a lot of questions, tap me on the knees, and try to find out whether I know right from wrong, and go away after taking down a bunch of notes. They are all very earnest and seem to be trying so hard you want to help them.
Somehow, they seem to think it matters.
THE END
September 3, 2023
Absolutely devastating. In my opinion Williams's "The Hot Spot" is the finest example of this sort of this novel (crime, pulp, noir, whatever you wish to call it). "River Girl" is a solid second. I don't like using the "gut punch" cliche but goddamn, that's exactly how I felt when I finished. I've read a few more of his works, mediocre genre crap, but the majority of his out-of-print titles are difficult to find and priced beyond my means. This happens to be the case with so many of my favorite writers but digging around tenaciously gives me something to do.
February 9, 2024
The "noir" story is sometimes a difficult thing to describe, because as one attempts to elucidate what it entails, it's always possible to come up with counterexamples where the expected settings or tropes are not quite maintained, and one finds after a while that the exceptions may be more common than the expected pattern. Apparently Charles Williams wrote a number of these "rural noir" tales, but this is my first experience with him. While I can't say i was blown over by this book, I definitely think I'm up for more.
The book is told in the first person by a deputy sheriff named jack marshall, who works for a corrupt boss, and is thus automatically a part of the corruption himself, even though he hates everything about what he is doing. The local "cat houses" and gambling establishments pay the sheriff's office for "protection", and there's a new minister in town who wants to shake things up and tear down the moral degeneracy. Jack is married, but it's all quite loveless, and we only see his wife briefly for one scene near the beginning, before she promptly disappears on some sort of weird vacation and is literally never heard from again. He goes fishing up the lake and encounters, and becomes obsessed with, a mysterious woman staying up there with her husband. It turns out they used to know each other a little in childhood school days, and now the quiet, submissive-seeming Doris appears to be on the run with her drunk of a husband. Things are pretty quickly set up for the grand fall of Jack marshall. But it's not quite as you'd expect. There are two potential 'femme fatales" in this book but neither of them are evil or monsrous. Jack marshall probably makes the wrong choice, going for the woman who just wants peace and tranquility in her life rather than the one who's really crazy about him. Sometimes we are just like that, aren't we? Either way, he is doomed, and it's actually quite shocking to see just how far he will go in his dopish desperation. it's funny because Williams early on establishes Jack as a cool, somewhat kind-hearted, level-headed character, but quickly as things spiral we realise that he's just making stupid choice after stupid choice, and he has nobody to blame but himself. He certainly can't foist any blame on the women in his life. It's hilarious and sad seeing him try to think his way out of the horrible jam he's gotten himself in, hanging on to little strands of hope as if they're his salvation. You can tell he's worried sick but keeps telling Doris that "everything is all right now". It doesn't bode well for their future if he can't even explain anything to her. When he gets a sweet day or two of piece with the woman he's run away with, the thing he wants to do most of all is -- get her to go shopping! It's nuts, and Doris obviously thinks it's kind of nuts too, but also sweet, and she wants to show gratitude to the man who has helped get her out of a terrible situation, even if that help came in the form of murder.
And then there's Dinah, the "kept woman" of the crooked Buford, the sheriff who pretty much would run the town were it not for people like the interfering minister. Dinah becomes obsessed with the hulking taciturn deputy, especially once she realises he's not just a hunk of meat and has a quick-working brain. While I found her obsession with Jack a little unbelievable, Williams did a decent job of showing us that Dinah's attraction to danger and risk wasn't insidious or evil, and that ultimately we shouldn't blame her for wanting excitement in her life and feeling like it's time to make a clean break of it. With both women, jack is a bit dim -- pretending not to notice Dinah's advances (because he can't tell anyone about Doris you see) and treating Doris like some kind of fragile doll that he just wants to dress up, all the while not seeming to really understand the nature of love -- something both women have more experience and wisdom about.
Ultimately a thing I thought was very compelling was Jack's desire to disappear -- to revoke his identity and start a completely new one. While Charles Williams could not have anticipated this in 1951, I think in 2024 a whole lot of people who aren't murderers or serious lawbreakers have this desire, and the desire is increased exponentially by the fact that making yourself disappear is harder than ever in the technological age. While reading about jack's plan to spirit himself and Doris away somewhere (Mexico I guess?), I kept thinking to myself: "Oh this can't possibly work. They don't have any identification. They have $3,000 to spare and he wants to her waste it all on clothes instead of properly building their new identities. What about Doris? There must be pictures of her somewhere. People will know who they both are. What about Jack's wife? How the hell are they going to get on a plan?"
On reflection, it was easier to do some of this stuff back then. You could just waltz into a hotel and get a room without showing anybody anything except a bunch of cash (but you didn't want to do anything suspicious like show up without a suitcase or appear too interested in a particular woman/man, of course!). You could buy a plane ticket without ID, it seems. Now I wasn't born until 1980 and things were certainly easier in my childhood years then they are now, but it still kind of blows my mind how long people could get away with certain things decades ago. Still, the whole time Jack was hanging out in Bayou City with Doris, going to stores and beauty salons and mechanically buying the newspaper every few hours to see if his trick was pulled off successfully, i was screaming at him inside. What really gets me, too, and this is obviously something Williams (but not jack) was very conscious of, is that he's really just repeating the pattern of Doris's now-dead husband: a man on the run for murder (did Shevlin go on the run because of Doris, too? It seems like that might be), having to hide himself all the time, needing to flee whenever there was the chance that somebody would recognise him. How could jack, a seemingly intelligent person, not realise these things? it seems that Williams suggests that love, or if you like, obsession, is this sometimes one-sided, remorseless thing that makes little sense and can't be reasoned with. Jack has this startling moment of clarity at one point and questions whether Doris truly loves him at all, but he talks hismelf down from it! Nuts!
I liked this book though. i was with Jack a lot of the way but by the end mostly just felt bad for all the women -- not just Dinah and Doris either but people like Abbie Bell, the owner of a hotel that serves as a town brothel, and the girls that work at such places. Williams does seem to exhibit a lot of sympathy for the women characters, even if Jack's level of understanding only goes so far. I found myself increasingly irritated with jack, but from the moment he there's basically no turning back for him, and he increasingly reacts to everything like a cornered animal, so in a way, the gradual decline in sympathy for his character makes perfect sense. I can't remember the last time I read a book where I kept muttering to myself, "How the hell does he think he can get away with any of this?", but here it is. In a way, Jack's doggedness has a certain admirability to it, and I suppose that's one of the things Dinah saw in him and found attractive. And in the end, nobody betrayed him; nobody sold him out -- he just built his own ruin.
The book is told in the first person by a deputy sheriff named jack marshall, who works for a corrupt boss, and is thus automatically a part of the corruption himself, even though he hates everything about what he is doing. The local "cat houses" and gambling establishments pay the sheriff's office for "protection", and there's a new minister in town who wants to shake things up and tear down the moral degeneracy. Jack is married, but it's all quite loveless, and we only see his wife briefly for one scene near the beginning, before she promptly disappears on some sort of weird vacation and is literally never heard from again. He goes fishing up the lake and encounters, and becomes obsessed with, a mysterious woman staying up there with her husband. It turns out they used to know each other a little in childhood school days, and now the quiet, submissive-seeming Doris appears to be on the run with her drunk of a husband. Things are pretty quickly set up for the grand fall of Jack marshall. But it's not quite as you'd expect. There are two potential 'femme fatales" in this book but neither of them are evil or monsrous. Jack marshall probably makes the wrong choice, going for the woman who just wants peace and tranquility in her life rather than the one who's really crazy about him. Sometimes we are just like that, aren't we? Either way, he is doomed, and it's actually quite shocking to see just how far he will go in his dopish desperation. it's funny because Williams early on establishes Jack as a cool, somewhat kind-hearted, level-headed character, but quickly as things spiral we realise that he's just making stupid choice after stupid choice, and he has nobody to blame but himself. He certainly can't foist any blame on the women in his life. It's hilarious and sad seeing him try to think his way out of the horrible jam he's gotten himself in, hanging on to little strands of hope as if they're his salvation. You can tell he's worried sick but keeps telling Doris that "everything is all right now". It doesn't bode well for their future if he can't even explain anything to her. When he gets a sweet day or two of piece with the woman he's run away with, the thing he wants to do most of all is -- get her to go shopping! It's nuts, and Doris obviously thinks it's kind of nuts too, but also sweet, and she wants to show gratitude to the man who has helped get her out of a terrible situation, even if that help came in the form of murder.
And then there's Dinah, the "kept woman" of the crooked Buford, the sheriff who pretty much would run the town were it not for people like the interfering minister. Dinah becomes obsessed with the hulking taciturn deputy, especially once she realises he's not just a hunk of meat and has a quick-working brain. While I found her obsession with Jack a little unbelievable, Williams did a decent job of showing us that Dinah's attraction to danger and risk wasn't insidious or evil, and that ultimately we shouldn't blame her for wanting excitement in her life and feeling like it's time to make a clean break of it. With both women, jack is a bit dim -- pretending not to notice Dinah's advances (because he can't tell anyone about Doris you see) and treating Doris like some kind of fragile doll that he just wants to dress up, all the while not seeming to really understand the nature of love -- something both women have more experience and wisdom about.
Ultimately a thing I thought was very compelling was Jack's desire to disappear -- to revoke his identity and start a completely new one. While Charles Williams could not have anticipated this in 1951, I think in 2024 a whole lot of people who aren't murderers or serious lawbreakers have this desire, and the desire is increased exponentially by the fact that making yourself disappear is harder than ever in the technological age. While reading about jack's plan to spirit himself and Doris away somewhere (Mexico I guess?), I kept thinking to myself: "Oh this can't possibly work. They don't have any identification. They have $3,000 to spare and he wants to her waste it all on clothes instead of properly building their new identities. What about Doris? There must be pictures of her somewhere. People will know who they both are. What about Jack's wife? How the hell are they going to get on a plan?"
On reflection, it was easier to do some of this stuff back then. You could just waltz into a hotel and get a room without showing anybody anything except a bunch of cash (but you didn't want to do anything suspicious like show up without a suitcase or appear too interested in a particular woman/man, of course!). You could buy a plane ticket without ID, it seems. Now I wasn't born until 1980 and things were certainly easier in my childhood years then they are now, but it still kind of blows my mind how long people could get away with certain things decades ago. Still, the whole time Jack was hanging out in Bayou City with Doris, going to stores and beauty salons and mechanically buying the newspaper every few hours to see if his trick was pulled off successfully, i was screaming at him inside. What really gets me, too, and this is obviously something Williams (but not jack) was very conscious of, is that he's really just repeating the pattern of Doris's now-dead husband: a man on the run for murder (did Shevlin go on the run because of Doris, too? It seems like that might be), having to hide himself all the time, needing to flee whenever there was the chance that somebody would recognise him. How could jack, a seemingly intelligent person, not realise these things? it seems that Williams suggests that love, or if you like, obsession, is this sometimes one-sided, remorseless thing that makes little sense and can't be reasoned with. Jack has this startling moment of clarity at one point and questions whether Doris truly loves him at all, but he talks hismelf down from it! Nuts!
I liked this book though. i was with Jack a lot of the way but by the end mostly just felt bad for all the women -- not just Dinah and Doris either but people like Abbie Bell, the owner of a hotel that serves as a town brothel, and the girls that work at such places. Williams does seem to exhibit a lot of sympathy for the women characters, even if Jack's level of understanding only goes so far. I found myself increasingly irritated with jack, but from the moment he there's basically no turning back for him, and he increasingly reacts to everything like a cornered animal, so in a way, the gradual decline in sympathy for his character makes perfect sense. I can't remember the last time I read a book where I kept muttering to myself, "How the hell does he think he can get away with any of this?", but here it is. In a way, Jack's doggedness has a certain admirability to it, and I suppose that's one of the things Dinah saw in him and found attractive. And in the end, nobody betrayed him; nobody sold him out -- he just built his own ruin.
June 12, 2016
Yes, the title sounds hokey, doesn't it?
You'd never guess that this is a high-tension, crime noir novel. Maybe, based on the title alone, you'd think it was for kids.
Nope! This is top-notch crime noir. It's about a corrupt, small-town deputy who wants to steal the lovely wife of a man who lives in a shack, in the remote part of a nearby swamp. (Love at first sight, and the feeling is mutual, of course!)
Contrary to his plan, he ends up killing the shack-dweller, and then devises an intricate and clever plan to cover it up and abscond with the deceased man's wife. It seems like it should work. But as it turns out, the deputy overlooked a few small things during execution of his plan. And those small mistakes come back to bite him.
Things begin spinning out of control, and end in a terribly nightmarish way. This is a very well-written and tightly plotted novel. I highly recommend it to all crime-noir fans.
I read the Stark House Press edition (2013), which pairs "River Girl" with "Nothing in Her Way."
There's an introduction by Rick Ollerman, entitled "Charles Williams: The Best Known Unknown Paperback Original." Ollerman provides a good summary of Williams's career, which started in 1951 with Gold Medal paperbacks and ended with screen adaptations (most notably, "Dead Calm" and "The Hot Spot").
You'd never guess that this is a high-tension, crime noir novel. Maybe, based on the title alone, you'd think it was for kids.
Nope! This is top-notch crime noir. It's about a corrupt, small-town deputy who wants to steal the lovely wife of a man who lives in a shack, in the remote part of a nearby swamp. (Love at first sight, and the feeling is mutual, of course!)
Contrary to his plan, he ends up killing the shack-dweller, and then devises an intricate and clever plan to cover it up and abscond with the deceased man's wife. It seems like it should work. But as it turns out, the deputy overlooked a few small things during execution of his plan. And those small mistakes come back to bite him.
Things begin spinning out of control, and end in a terribly nightmarish way. This is a very well-written and tightly plotted novel. I highly recommend it to all crime-noir fans.
I read the Stark House Press edition (2013), which pairs "River Girl" with "Nothing in Her Way."
There's an introduction by Rick Ollerman, entitled "Charles Williams: The Best Known Unknown Paperback Original." Ollerman provides a good summary of Williams's career, which started in 1951 with Gold Medal paperbacks and ended with screen adaptations (most notably, "Dead Calm" and "The Hot Spot").
May 20, 2018
Nonostante una traduzione molto datata di questa prima edizione italiana, dribblando fra l'uso del verbo "parcare" quando si doveva parcheggiare e un "maresciallo" con la "M" minuscola che compare a tradimento prima che si venga a sapere che il protagonista del romanzo di nome fa Jack Marshall, questo è un romanzo che porta benissimo i suoi sessanta e passa.
Nessuna meraviglia che sia poi ricomparso nel catalogo Longanesi a più riprese, portandosi dietro questo titolo privo di senso, se paragonato a un più letterale "La ragazza del fiume". Considerando la ragazza discinta della sovraccoperta del "Giallo Proibito" ci sarebbe stato proprio a pennello.
Passata la boa della metà del volume, alla quale ci si arriva senza fatica, la trama è un continuo susseguirsi di colpi scena. Quello che si fatica a fare diventa invece staccarsi dal volume, tanto è forte la sensazione che la pagina successiva porterà a una svolta che non si era considerata.
Nessuna meraviglia che sia poi ricomparso nel catalogo Longanesi a più riprese, portandosi dietro questo titolo privo di senso, se paragonato a un più letterale "La ragazza del fiume". Considerando la ragazza discinta della sovraccoperta del "Giallo Proibito" ci sarebbe stato proprio a pennello.
Passata la boa della metà del volume, alla quale ci si arriva senza fatica, la trama è un continuo susseguirsi di colpi scena. Quello che si fatica a fare diventa invece staccarsi dal volume, tanto è forte la sensazione che la pagina successiva porterà a una svolta che non si era considerata.
May 17, 2014
I’d read Dead Calm (after seeing the movie) and liked it, but never came across another by this author.
In River Girl, a small-town sheriff falls fast and hard for a woman he meets way back in a swamp. Turns out he’s not happy with his wife and she’s not happy with her husband. There’s only one way out: kill the husband and run away together. The situation is complicated by impending corruption charges against the sheriff and deputy, and further complicated by the sheriff’s girlfriend. The tension mounts (although there’s some padding) and the ending is devastating.
In River Girl, a small-town sheriff falls fast and hard for a woman he meets way back in a swamp. Turns out he’s not happy with his wife and she’s not happy with her husband. There’s only one way out: kill the husband and run away together. The situation is complicated by impending corruption charges against the sheriff and deputy, and further complicated by the sheriff’s girlfriend. The tension mounts (although there’s some padding) and the ending is devastating.
October 23, 2012
reminds me of The Postman Always Rings Twice. Written in 1951, the year I was born. Again, I enjoy getting down to the reality of what life was like in a particular period, not all glorified. When the climax was approaching, my emotions really took over and I could feel everything the characters were feeling.....good writing to achieve that.
May 24, 2011
Another one of those corrupt deppity books like "Pop 1280" and "The Killer Inside Me". Overwritten with insanely anal attention to detail (I kilt him and THIS IS HOW I DID IT, page after page). Day Keene and Harry Whittington are much better at this kind of pulp, read them instead.
October 5, 2011
Good '50s-era suspense, but flags a bit toward the end. This novel started as a much shorter piece (Catfish Triangle) and was fleshed out to novel length at the publisher's urging and that's probably why it starts to fall apart at the 2/3 mark. Still enjoyable for the evocative, vintage milieu.
July 23, 2014
A quick read and a good one. When will these guys realize that the dame just isn't worth it? Or maybe she is . . . in which case, PLEASE pay attention to the details. You've really got to look around the scene of the crime before you split.
June 6, 2019
What a great book. Just finished it this morning. The writing style is tremendous. The plot is strong. Williams has a unique ability to show the strategic thinking of someone in a bind, and he does it in a satisfying way. This is one of his best.
July 12, 2017
Excellent example of noir fiction.
Want to read
May 1, 2019Synopsis: the Deputy Sheriff meets a woman; it's love at first sight except her husband stands in the way.
June 8, 2023
It’s a quick, suspenseful until it’s frantic, swampy shot of pure noir. I flashed back a bit to You Live Once by John D. MacDonald, but that’s a hazy “runnin’ through the swamp” comparison between a book I enjoyed many moons ago, and this gem.
Jack Marshall, and his boss Buford, have long been some of the dirt in a dirty town, even though they’re the Law. A fiery soul named Soames is spearheading the drive to clean up the town, so all the bribes and hush-ups may not work anymore to maintain the questionable status quo. Perhaps not the best time for Jack to fall hard for the strange and lovely woman hiding out far along the river. It doesn’t take long for him to realize that she isn’t actually the one hiding - it’s that dodgy fellow, certainly a nervous fugitive from something, she is with out at their little cottage hideaway who has brought her to nowhere and a boat-ride just beyond. Very interesting…Jack knows the guy from somewhere, but doesn’t quite know where…
I love every twist and surprise that follows from Jack and Doris meeting and feeling that instant, dangerous attraction from which all else follows. Sure, instant love at irresistible intensity that drops hard in just a few pages can come across as a bit contrived, but I bought in because I want the potentially riveting results of “Nice to meet you, I love you”/“Same.”. And this messed up romance leading to sudden violence delivers all the best swampy noir tragedy it can. Jack and Doris are the highlights of the lowlifes - but we have a great, compact little supporting cast buzzing around like mosquitoes; Buford, Miss Abbie, and of course Dinah the clever and aggressive firecracker.
A fabulous and excruciatingly bleak finale, plus a quiet “pain gone, but scars on” denouement put me in perhaps a Dead Calm mood for more Charles Williams.
Jack Marshall, and his boss Buford, have long been some of the dirt in a dirty town, even though they’re the Law. A fiery soul named Soames is spearheading the drive to clean up the town, so all the bribes and hush-ups may not work anymore to maintain the questionable status quo. Perhaps not the best time for Jack to fall hard for the strange and lovely woman hiding out far along the river. It doesn’t take long for him to realize that she isn’t actually the one hiding - it’s that dodgy fellow, certainly a nervous fugitive from something, she is with out at their little cottage hideaway who has brought her to nowhere and a boat-ride just beyond. Very interesting…Jack knows the guy from somewhere, but doesn’t quite know where…
I love every twist and surprise that follows from Jack and Doris meeting and feeling that instant, dangerous attraction from which all else follows. Sure, instant love at irresistible intensity that drops hard in just a few pages can come across as a bit contrived, but I bought in because I want the potentially riveting results of “Nice to meet you, I love you”/“Same.”. And this messed up romance leading to sudden violence delivers all the best swampy noir tragedy it can. Jack and Doris are the highlights of the lowlifes - but we have a great, compact little supporting cast buzzing around like mosquitoes; Buford, Miss Abbie, and of course Dinah the clever and aggressive firecracker.
A fabulous and excruciatingly bleak finale, plus a quiet “pain gone, but scars on” denouement put me in perhaps a Dead Calm mood for more Charles Williams.
July 6, 2025
This is a compelling little mid-20th century noir. It juggles the tropes of the genre effectively, despite a few convenient plot devices, but its real strength is in Williams' writing. This is the third Williams novel I've read and I've encountered few authors who can ramp up the tension so effectively. I ripped through the last 40 pages or so of River Girl on the edge of my seat, unable to put it down. Definitely recommended if you like this sort of thing.
November 16, 2019
Among the elements of this story, this message rings loud and true: if I cute redhead is willing to run across the country with you, even if she knows you've made a complete mess of your life and everything you've touched, take her up on it.
February 14, 2020
nice classic country noir
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
September 2, 2024
FAST PACED THRILLING NOIR CRIME WITH GREAT WRITING
December 31, 2025
No pots parar de llegir fins que te l'acabes
February 11, 2025
Excellent!
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