A 1956 novelette about an unpleasant private eye and his nympho, crazy, female client. Interesting first person writing shows us what life was like in the 1950s i.e. lots of booze, poor diet, and the price of things compared to now e.g. $25.00 a day to hire a P.I. and $1 will do for taxi fare. Mr Willeford is a very good crime fiction (hard boiled) writer but this is an early (training wheels still on) work.

This early book by Charles Willeford has depth beyond it's deceptively simple plot. At first glance, it's just another detective story, but beneath the surface is an examination of post-war America, with a noir protagonist who has been changed by the war he fought in, and even may be suffering from PTSD beneath his always cool, sarcastic exterior.

Not Willeford's best work, but definitely worth reading if you like noir with a little more depth.

05/2020

2020:
From 1953
Gritty and graphic, violent Pulp Novella. Great action suspense, especially as it goes on. I love all this, but there are such interesting character details, such strange entertaining sequences. This made it stand out. The scenes in Vegas, the wedding chapel, are funny and fun. And the almost appropriate encounters with the fifteen year old girl are unusual, not exactly genre cliche.
Back in like 2010 I found a cache of his older books at a used booksale. Like someone had collected them and then died (they are mostly 1980s reprints). Sorry to be so morbid, but if you collected five of his books, why would you knowingly donate them to a charity booksale? At least I got them. This is why I'd read so many of his books before the Hoke Mosley series.

2014:
Another totally fun and satisfying 50s noir. This is the fourth Willeford I've read, and I'm very into him now.

Dumb, sexist story. A woman married to a rich man cons a private detective. I liked the ending, where a greedy man gets totally screwed.

Fun pulp fiction easily read in one sitting. Has everything you'd expect: the down on his luck gumshoe looking for a way out, femme fatales, dead husbands, with a nice twist at the end that I'll admit I didn't see coming.

Minor Willeford. Classic hardboiled, efficient and funny but few surprises or serious explorations of the psychologies of these archetypes. Would you believe this woman is a bit crazy and this guy is a huge piece of shit? His earlier novel High Priest of California really burrows into the dark misogyny that Wild Wives just takes cracks at. Still it's a hundred pages and here's my favourite passage:

"Do you want out, Kitty?" I asked the cat. It meowed again. I put the pan of water down on the sideboard, crossed the kitchen and opened the door to the backyard. The stupid cat sat where it was without moving. I shut the door and picked up the pan of water again. The cat meowed again. I set the pan down again, opened the door so it could get out, but the cat didn't make a move. I kicked out with my right foot and caught the cat just right. It sailed out of the door, missed the steps completely and landed running. It quickly disappeared into the darkness of the backyard. I slammed the door and left the kitchen with the pan of cold water. I don't like cats, anyway. Too independent. And even when you try to do them a favor they don't appreciate it.

This will be the 4th or 5th Willeford I've read...the last one High Priest Of California that a review or two or more say has been paired with this one. The synopsis has some similarities to that other from Willeford...although this one features a detective, whereas the other featured a used-car salesman...detective work only figured into the story in the way that Frank "Dolly"...I forget his last name...detected who the woman is that he met at the dance blub....(update:edit: it was Russell Haxby in the Willeford story; whereas it was Frank "Dolly" Dillon in the Jim Thompston story, A Hell of a Woman...but had I not corrected this....and who is to say I'm right?...this'd be the gospel?]

This one begins:

The rain hit hard at my window. It slowed down to a whisper, then hit hard again. All afternoon the rain had been doing this while I sat behind my desk with my feet up, doing nothing. I looked around the ratty little office and wondered vaguely what time it was.

Well it's 8:13 P.M. now on a rainy Monday evening and it's a half-hour past sunset...just getting dark here....onward and upward.

update, complete, Tuesday evening, 6:58 p.m. e.s.t.

What makes this story a joy to read is the comic elements. Jake Blake is a private investigator and it is the interactions between him and the other characters that makes this one a go. Several women enter his life and office where he works in San Francisco....some hotel...though I forget the name of it....his home and office is there.

The 1st is a younger girl, not yet sixteen, and she wants to get into the business. She's a hoot. I'm reminded of those Sunday morning movies, black and white, on the old Magnavox and then that big color beast that was the size of a coffin...Shirley Temple...the girl here is an older version of Shirley...little bit of spice and sauce added. We're going there in a handbasket, as Karl said, as have others, and this is true. So ingredients are added over time.

Then...there's another woman who seeks his services...a paying customer this time...the girl is working w/o pay.

It is the second woman and the interaction between Jake and her that mimics the story in High Priest Of California...w/o going into details, this version is a better read. Why? Why ever? Too good to be true? Those sorts of things? Yeah. Maybe that's it.

Anyway, an enjoyable story and in the end, the wages of sin is punishment so be prepared, be very prepared.

Good read. I'd read it again...this one and the other from Thompson, A Hell of a Woman.

Clever, funny, but too short and un-poetic to make a real impact.

Cockfighter keeps popping up on one shelf or another of my recommendations here on Goodreads so when I found this classic hard-boiled novel in an op-shop for $1 I knew I HAD to try Charles Willeford for myself.

And I wasn't disappointed. It's a tiny novella filled with seedy and conflicted characters and a simple yet convoluted plot. Perfect pulp material.

Three seperate parts are vivid in my mind for different reasons; the first being the description and behaviour of Barbara Ann Allen is graphic and shocking in it's content like a slap to the face with a block of ice, if you weren't sure that this novel was going to be anything different than a cheap Dashiell Hammett knockoff already then by page 4 you will be 100% convinced.

Willeford follows this up with some gratuitous and unnecessary violence; first you're given a hint as Jake Blake nonchalently attacks a man without prior warning and a few pages later what amounts to a hate crime with some self-loathing thrown in and some latent homosexuality undertones, is as brutal a beating as I've seen described in literature for quite some time.

The final image I'll leave you with is the climax, Willeford manages to pull a rabbit out of a hat when you didn't even see the hat or the arm reaching in to it, with as true a depressing, existential and classically pulp noir ending as you've ever read.

A fast and enjoyable read but not long enough to truly be called amazing.

So bad, it could be satire. Add a few puns and it's a passable Nick Danger episode.

annotated in my (used) paperback:

“He's as gay as a bird dog!” The clerk laughed in a dirty way. “As gay as a bird dog!”

“There was a letter from a woman in Mill Valley asking me how much I charged for handling divorce cases. I answered her letter with a postcard telling her I didn't handle divorce cases. If her husband happened to get the mail before she did, there would be an interesting argument between them, I speculated.”

“How dumb could a man get and still go on living?”

A lot of twists and turns in this fast paced pulp fiction novel. P.I. Jake Blake crosses paths with 2 women he'll wish he never laid eyes on.