Peter Rabe: A SHROUD FOR JESSO

Time for truth: I didn't actually read two Peter Rabe books in a row, even though I did like Anatomy of a Killer quite a bit. What I actually read was one book containing two Peter Rabe novels that were of such divergent quality that they necessitated two separate reviews. Got it? OK, cool. Now, the first thing I want to make clear is, that doesn't automatically mean that A Shroud for Jesso was a shitty book, because it wasn't: it's just that Anatomy of a Killer was really good noir, and A Shroud for Jesso was your standard fifties-sixties noir. Definitely not bad, but it didn't stand out, either. The plot was a little bit contrived, although not really as such things go (believe me, some noir can be really contrived)--a guy, Jesso, has information other people want. He's very difficult to kill. A dangerous woman falls in love with him. He almost comes out on top, and then there's a depressing denouement. In this particular case, a good part of the action takes place in enclosed spaces: on a boat, in a house. I don't think this claustrophobic aspect is played up quite as well as it could be (in general, what separates Anatomy from Shroud is the far superior atmosphere of the almost-experessionistic Anatomy). Alright: now that I've tossed around a few European art buzzwords, let's just give this a grade and finish things off. I think a B sounds fair.

Peter Rabe: ANATOMY OF A KILLER

We already talked (read: I already wrote) about my love of 1940s-60s (yes, the dates keep changing) crime fiction. I didn't go into much detail about why I love that era so much (answer: the Americanized roman noir), but I still think I covered the topic well enough at that time not to go into it again, and therefore I'm just going to come out and tell you how much I enjoyed Peter Rabe's Anatomy of a Killer. Donald Westlake once wrote of Rabe something like "He has the best books with the worst titles" (I think Westlake used Kill the Boss Goodbye as an example of just that, and a good one it was). So, right off the bat, I'm going to come out and state that no, Anatomy of a Killer is not an appropriate title for this book at all. "Anatomy" simply connotes too much detail, and detail there isn't. Profile of a Killer, that works, I guess. I hate to give anything away, but Requiem for a Killer isn't a bad title, either (nor, really, does it give too much away, since the killer himself wants to kill off the killer in order to become a retired traveling button salesman, but that'll all make sense if you ever read this). But the title only matters so much, and so much isn't ever very much, particularly not in this case. What Peter Rabe has written here is classic noir: turn down the lights a little bit, put on some Miles Davis (preferably the score to Elevator to the Gallows, or whatever that noir score he wrote/recorded was), maybe chain smoke your whole way through it with a bottle of rye for company (there truly is no better way to read such a book as this, although I don't smoke myself [if that's the case, drink more rye to compensate]). This is the kind of book that makes you want to handle a gun and talk like Bogart in his prime, and as far as I'm concerned there's no higher recommendation for a crime story. Solid A grade, this one.