'The Big Heat' by William P McGivern - 5*

[Algernon (Darth Anyan)]

A classic noir that is now almost forgotten because of the success of the movie version by Fritz Lang from 1953. I think both deserve a reconsideration in view of the subject matter.

He had been nosing about a No Trespassing sign, so they decided to put him out of the way. It had started with Deery’s suicide.

Dave Bannion is a dodo bird dressed in blue: an honest cop. He’s about to become extinct because he refuses to listen to good advice from his boss and rule the suspicious death of a police clerk a suicide. Thomas Deery shoots himself without leaving a suicide note. His widow claims that he had health problems. Bannion is contacted by the man’s secret lover, a dance girl named Lucy Carroway, with a different story.
Soon after, Lucy’s tortured body is thrown from a speeding car, a signature hit from the crime syndicate controlling the city. Bannion takes the evidence to his captain only to be ordered to drop it. Then he returns home to his wife and four year old daughter only to be threatened on the phone by the crime boss Mike Lagana. A furious Bannion confronts the mobster but very soon his car is rigged with a bomb that kills his wife instead of him.
Instead of receiving help from the police, Bannion is asked to resign for not following orders and for leaking information to the press.
I read philosophy, he thought, because I’m too weak to stand up against the misery and meaningless heartbreak I run into every day on the job.

The time for philosophy and for following the rule of law is gone. For Dave Bannion the only thing left is payback. The big heat is on!

William P. McGivern honed his literary skills as a police reporter in Philadelphia, the setting of this novel. The fruits of his labour are apparent not only in his direct, unflinching portrait of the criminal underworld, but also in his biting editorials against corruption and in his faith in the true power of the press. The demons and the system Bannion is fighting against are making a comeback in recent years, while the press has joined ranks with the servants of the all-mighty Profit – so this old novel becomes suddenly relevant to current urban developments

That was the way they preserved the status quo, kept their harmless, little city-wide bingo game operating. Kill, cheat, lie, destroy! While cops looked the other way and judges handed down suspended sentences. This was their city, their private, beautifully-rigged slot machine, and to hell with the few million slobs who just happened to live in the place.