A Killer is Loose (Audible Audio Edition) Gil Brewer Zach Hanks Audible Studios Books
Download As PDF : A Killer is Loose (Audible Audio Edition) Gil Brewer Zach Hanks Audible Studios Books
He shot Jake Halloran in the head, then turned to me, smiling, the Luger held loosely in his right hand.
"Hello, pal," he said. "My name's Ralph Angers. What's yours?"
That's how I met him, this grave-looking, clean-cut, totally mad young man, who walked through my town with a gun, leaving a wake of tears and agony and murder behind him.
A Killer is Loose (Audible Audio Edition) Gil Brewer Zach Hanks Audible Studios Books
If I could write a novel one-tenth as good as this one, I would. Gil Brewer should be better known than he is. This book is a masterpiece from cover to cover. It is up there with the best of Jim Thompson's work. The descriptions of the people, the places, and the moods are crazy good. This is noir as it was meant to be. A man is down on his luck, way down. His wife, Ruby, is at least nine months ready and he hasn't found a lick of work in six months or more. Selling the last of his gun collection ought to pay a few bills. So he goes to his favorite bartender to sell it. Trouble finds him though in the person of Ralph Anger, who is do aptly named. And, hours of pure terror with a crazed gunman ensue. This book is so good you'll want to read it again as soon asyou finish it.Product details
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A Killer is Loose (Audible Audio Edition) Gil Brewer Zach Hanks Audible Studios Books Reviews
NOTE This review is for the out of print Gold Medal paperback original from the 1950s. I have not read the version, so I cannot say if it is properly formatted or has other ebook issues (like new typos introduced by the electronic scanning process). But as this is one of my all-time favorite noir novels and seeing how no one else has reviewed it yet, I wanted to share my thoughts with you.
PLOT Steve Logan, an out of work ex-cop with a pregnant wife and too many bills to pay, finds has his life turned upside-down by a chance meeting with insane killer Ralph Angers. Logan saves him from being hit by a bus, not knowing the man is a dangerous lunatic, and Angers repays him by abducting him at gunpoint. They hook up with a hot stripper Angers has also abducted and then it's one violent killing spree after another as Angers drags them all over town in his mad quest to "save lives." He doesn't want to kill his two new pals but will if they don't do what he says. This all leads to a frenzied chase with all the cops in town after them and a brutal climax.
This is another slam-bang winner by Gil Brewer, who previously knocked me out with his genius THE THREE-WAY SPLIT. I'd heard Bill Pronzini claim A KILLER IS LOOSE is up there with Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me and Pop. 1280 and he was right. Like Thompson's classics, it's a story full of shocking, explosive violence dominated by a single-minded maniac. The primary difference is that Brewer's first-person narrator is not the maniac, but his desperate victim, and I don't think the story could have worked any other way. Through little hints of Angers' backstory peppered throughout, you almost begin to feel sorry for him, and yes, even to root for him to win because, in his mad, mixed-up mind, he really does want to help people and will let nothing stand in the way of his dream. In this respect, the book reminds me of a twisted version of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.
A KILLER IS LOOSE should have been turned into a film noir back in the '50s because it's all so incredibly cinematic, suspenseful and exciting. Not a word is wasted. The words and images hit you like a machine gun and just keep coming. I have no idea how a novel this good could have remained out-of-print for 58 years. It's criminal, made all the more bizarre considering Brewer's fiction has been undergoing a slow revival.
A bunch of of Brewer's books are now coming out for the . As for hard copies, Stark House put out a pair of Brewer double features Wild to Possess / A Taste for Sin (Stark House Noir Classics) and A Devil for O'Shaugnessy/ The Three-way Split (each double feature has one brilliant novel and one bad one unfortunately). Hard Case Crime has reissued a great one The Vengeful Virgin. Two of his other classics are 13 French Street and the Red Scarf, which make for a nice double feature. Although this UK release is out of print (cheap used copies abound), you can buy the books separately from other publishers.
Just be careful to research reviews when collecting this author because while many of his books are unputdownable gems of white-hot noir, Brewer was also an alcoholic and wrote a fair amount of lesser works and outright junk (not that other noir masters like Jim Thompson don't have their bad books, too, but Brewer's talent seems more inconsistent). His best books are from the 1950s-1960s, so check the copyright dates.
As the other review here says, this is considered a classic of hardboiled crime/noir among some people. Hapless protagonist accidentally saves the life of a stone-cold psychopath who takes a liking to him -- and then they go out have some wacky misadventures.
I kid, but that really is part of the problem. This is a very episodic book when it works, and it does in sections, it works in *moments*. The first two killings and the episode of the piano-playing girl are all excellent, Brewer gets the prose just right here and manages to convey both the offhand madness of the villain and something of the terror involved. The book does succeed sporadically.
The problem though is that Brewer has to tell a full story here, not just a sucession of "scenes", and the book doesn't really cohere as a whole. It doesn't make sense. While certain characters behave very believably, others don't give relevant information, or behave in strange ways to keep the plot going. The villain at times is a nightmarish monster right from some slasher flick (and is very believable as such) ...but at times is meant to be sympathetic too, and the whipsawing stance doesn't help the suspension of disbelief. (This is, I've discovered, a very common fault with books from this era. Whether it's space constraints or publishing restraints or simply a talent issue, they often didn't get the psychology right.)
I think basically the problem is that this is an idea for a story or a setup for a story -- not a story. "I met a psycho who took an interest in me" is not a story. It's an idea. "I met a psycho who took an interest in me -- I was scared, but I discovered one of his targets was somebody I cared about, and so I overcame my fear to try and stop him" is. (Of course, that's the plot of the movie COLLATERAL.) Notice how none of the characters really have arcs -- unlike Jim Thompson's two classics. They end up pretty much where they started, a little worse for the wear maybe but the story didn't seem to change them any. And why should it? It's meant to be a thrill machine.
(The idea that this is as good Thompson's two masterpieces is absurd, typical Pronzini over-effusion. Brewer and this book certainly have their moments, but Thompson is distinctive in a way Brewer simply wasn't. )
For all that I would cautiously recommend this, both to support the excellent ebook outfit Prologue Books and to take a look at the legitimately great moments in here. In small bits it might even convince you that you're reading something great. Take a step back, though, and the weaknesses are much more apparent.
If I could write a novel one-tenth as good as this one, I would. Gil Brewer should be better known than he is. This book is a masterpiece from cover to cover. It is up there with the best of Jim Thompson's work. The descriptions of the people, the places, and the moods are crazy good. This is noir as it was meant to be. A man is down on his luck, way down. His wife, Ruby, is at least nine months ready and he hasn't found a lick of work in six months or more. Selling the last of his gun collection ought to pay a few bills. So he goes to his favorite bartender to sell it. Trouble finds him though in the person of Ralph Anger, who is do aptly named. And, hours of pure terror with a crazed gunman ensue. This book is so good you'll want to read it again as soon asyou finish it.
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