Roy Nichols, in debt and facing financial ruin, just got turned down for a loan by his brother. Making his way back home to break the Bad News to his wife, Nichols stops at ALF’S BAR-B-Q. After getting in a bar fight, Nichols leaves and gets a ride in a Lincoln sedan by a beautiful woman named Vivian and a thug named Noel. Their car goes off a cliff and crashes in the river below. And that’s just CHAPTER ONE of The Red Scarf (1954)!
As Paul Bishop points out in his excellent “Introduction” to this new Stark House omnibus, Gil Brewer was a top noir writer in the 1950s. Sadly, Brewer’s alcohol, drug, and depression problems damaged him and his writing career. At the tail end of the 1960s, Gil Brewer was reduced to writing novelizations of the TV show It Takes a Thief. Brewer died in January, 1983.
Gil Brewer wrote over 30 novels and dozens of short stories. As you might suspect, Brewer’s work varies in quality. When Brewer is “on”–like in The Red Scarf–he creates characters whose lives become pressure cookers of suspense and villainy. In A Killer is Loose starts with a domestic crisis. Steve’s wife is about to go to the hospital to have a baby. Steve is broke. He decides to go to a local bar and sell his gun, a Luger. Instead of getting money for his gun, Steve falls through a rabbit hole with a murderous psychopathic killer who dreams of building a hospital! Only Gil Brewer could invent that kind of madness! A Killer is Loose takes you on a whirlwind of chills and lunacy. If you’re a fan of noir fiction, The Red Scarf/A Killer is Loose are first-rate thrillers! GRADE: A
Don’t think I have ever read any thing by Brewer, but I have a collection of his short stories somewhere. Just picked up used a Stark House edition of Peter Rabe’s Daniel Port Omnibus 1. They put out nice editions but a bit pricey.
Steve, the original paperback editions of Brewer and Rabe would cost you an arm and a leg. Stark House is one of my favorite publishers.
I’d bet you buy all of the Stark House books, George.
Rick, my vast Stark House collection goes back a decade or so. I even wrote an introduction to one of the Stark House omnibuses: http://georgekelley.org/forgotten-books-401-shanghai-flamecounterspy-express-by-a-s/
George, I’d never heard of Gil Brewer till I started blogging nearly a decade ago and while I have read about his novels and short stories, he still remains to be read.
Prashant, THE RED SCARFT/A KILLER IS LOOSE would be a perfect book to start with Gil Brewer. This book captures his intensity and nourish stories.
Brewer impressed the heck out of me with his very dark collection, REDHEADS DIE QUICKLY and Other Stories. A few of those stories have really stayed with me. I have a couple of his other books, but clearly THE RED SCARF is the one I need to read first.
Jeff, in THE RED SCARF you think things can’t get worse. Then they do! Brewer was a master of nourish terror!
Not a Brewer fan, really not because of his writing, I’m just not into the noir spiral of doom thing.
Rick, sometimes doom seems like an appropriete metaphor for our Times.
George – Thanks for the reminder to read more Gil Brewer.
Elgin, Gil Brewer is the guy to read when you’re in the mood for noir.