Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: vintage. This book was originally published as a serialized story in a magazine in 1959.
When I learned I had to read a book that was over 40 years old for a reading challenge, I knew it would be a Hard Case Crime one.
Hard Case Crime is great at bringing to life authors that are little known or have fallen out of vogue. There was so much in the way of pulp publication in the 50s and 60s and HCC climbs through the archives to find good stuff. This one is no exception.
I love crime stories and gangster stories and this one gives me both: a federal agent going undercover to try and break up a counterfeit money scheme run by Philadelphia gangsters. It reads as if James Bond was a US detective: there are plenty of scenes of food and drink, the obligatory sex with a potential femme fatale, over-the-top villains who do villainous things and a western government trying to triumph over all of it.
I know what I’m getting most of the time I read a Hard Case Crime novel and this one delivers the goods. It’s a fun, pulpy, noirish tale that would have made a great 88 minute film in 1954. It doesn’t try to be anything it’s not and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Everyone has “guilty pleasures.” I suppose these kinds of reads would fall under mine but I never feel guilty for reading them. As I often say: democratize literature. Read what you want. This was fun for me. Find something that is fun for you.