Gun the Dame Down is just one of three novels included in a new Stark House triple-decker, although to call it a novel is a stretch, as it's only about 60 pages long. If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you know that's not a complaint. James Reasoner mentions in his review that it would have made a nice half of an Ace Double, and I agree. I can't imagine what other market Brewer could have been shooting for.William Death, private-eye (Brewer didn't write many p.i. novels that I'm aware of), takes on the case of a woman whose husband has been murdered. It's a weird household if there ever was one. The wife and her lover tell Death (okay, I wouldn't have named him that) that they'd planned to kill the guy, but they didn't. The husband's former wife is also living in the house, along with her sex-crazed teenage daughter and her son, who's mentally challenged to say the least.
Death has never worked on a murder case before. He's just a guy who does ordinary p.i. work, someone who's never had any kind of complicated case. He takes this one, however, but I doubt he'll ever take another one because in the course of 60 pages he takes more punishment that most tough guys take in an entire career. He's beaten (numerous times) slugged in the head with fists and pistols (too many times to count), shot, knocked out, and a few other things that I won't mention because at least one of them is too spoilery. He also meets a woman named Cadillac Smith, so if you thought William Death was too cute, you might really be upset by that one.
For such a short book, the plot is quite complex. I'm not sure I figured it all out. Or if I did, I'm not sure I got it all right. Doesn't matter. Things are moving so fast that you won't care. The action never slows down for a minute. As for the title, I have no idea how it fits the book. But it's a good one, so who cares?
There are two other formerly unpublished Gil Brewer novels in this package, so what are you waiting for? Get your order in now.
7 comments:
Love me some Stark House reprints. I'm in line for this one.
Btw, Lord Peter Wimsey's middle name (well, one of them) is "Death"; a touch that makes Dorothy L. Sayers seems too arch for words.
I ordered GUN THE DAME DOWN. Stark House is doing a great job!
I remember when I read "Three-Way Split" for the first time. It turned out to be one of my favorite GM paperbacks. Other Gil Brewer novels never reached that height for me. But to me "Three-Way Split" was a mighty high standard and his other novels, though very good, were always a notch lower.
That's probably my favorite, too.
Damn, Deb beat me to it again. I was going to throw in the Wimsey trivia. And didn't Wimsey use "Death Bredon" (his middle names) when he went undercover in MURDER MUST ADVERTISE?
Jeff
Although I should add that Sayers made a point that "Death" was pronounced in two syllables.
Jeff
I'm not sure about the tv adaptation (with Ian Carmichael), but an old radio adaptation I heard (also with Carmichael) did pronounce it "Death" as one syllable. Perhaps the visual pun didn't translate verbally.
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