“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Last year, Steeger Books put out its first deluxe edition hardback, containing all of Paul Cain’s short stories, as well as his lone novel, Fast One. I wrote the intro for Fast One, which is on every list of the greatest hardboiled Pulp novel (it battles The Maltese Falcon for my top spot). That was my sixth intro for Steeger, and it’s this week’s column. Clearly, I recommend reading this slim, recklessly-paced Pulp masterpiece.

Paul Cain’s Fast One is a relentless roller coaster ride, which never lets the reader catch their breath before the next heart-stopping drop. The hero, Gerry Kells, plays a never-ending chess game, in which new pieces are constantly added to the board. He maneuvers a constantly shifting labyrinth of players, alliances, and plots, like a Machievellian chess master. He doesn’t just respond to developments: He consistently moves to turn matters to his advantage. He is a hard guy, but he has a heart – which prevents him from being ruthless. A little more ruthlessness would have served him well.

Kells continually responds to the situations (which are often backed by a gat) thrown at him, by turning up the heat. Police, a newspaper, other gangsters – he’ll use, or take on, anything in the mix. It’s a continual sense of “What’s gonna happen next?” as you turn the pages. And when Kells gets an upper hand, a new wrench gums up the works.

Power, politics, and money: Kells continues to navigate this trilogy of shark-infested waters, right up to the final scene. If Kells had been willing to put a bad guy out of the story – or at least put a bullet in a knee or two, he would have had an easier time, moving forward. He leaves players on the board. And they’re not allies. He’s a tough guy, but he’s more honorable than his enemies.

Sam Peckinpah was a masterful movie director in the sixties and the seventies. Peckinpah (who, surprisingly, directed a Julian Lennon video), explored the theme of unchanging men in a changing world. The Wild Bunch is certainly an example of this. And I’m not sure any movie better plays out this theme than Ride the High Country.

Kells is an isolationist in a global community. He merely wants to do his own thing. But the world wouldn’t leave him be in New York, so he came out to the West Coast to gamble and have a good time.

The very first scene has local wannabe gambling boss Jack Rose asking Kells to help him out. He wants Kells to show up on his newly launched gambling boat. Kells’ presence will give the appearance that a competitor who Kells is friendly with, is okay with the new floating casino. The gambling ship wars had been ugly, before. As Kells lays it out for Rose, “You’d like to have me on the Joanna because I look like the highest-powered protection at this end of the country. You’d like to carry that eighteen-carat reputation of mine around with you so you could wave it and scare all the bad little boys away.”

Kells gives us his outlook on life in his answer, “I don’t want any part of it. I always got along pretty well by myself….I don’t want any part of anything.”

Kells just wants to be left alone. But he’s framed for murder on the very next page. By the end of chapter one, he’s held up a guy to get his legitimate gambling winnings, and been kicked unconscious when it didn’t go well.

Bad guys continually want Kells on their side. When he declines, they adopt the “If you’re not for me, you’re against me” mentality. They simply refuse to leave him alone. Given the choice to simply bail out and head back east, or try to get ahead of the game, he continually escalates the situation. He’s not an Edward G. Robinson gangster, but nobody is going to push him around, either. Especially if there’s money to be made. Kells always pushes things one more step.

Cain never ‘dumbs down’ this book, or goes for quick, easy violence to move the story forward. It is well-plotted, with sharp dialogue. And it really does never let up – it’s a race from start to finish. Cain never wrote another serial, or novel. He started with one, hit the mountain peak, and never bothered to try again.

George Sims was the author’s real name, and he wrote his pulp fiction as Paul Cain. He worked in Hollywood as Peter Ruric, writing the Boris Karloff thriller, The Black Cat. He was best known as Cain. Like many pulpsters, Cain’s real life was not ideal. He was married (and divorced) three times, struggled with ill health, and died with his successful writing years a distant memory.

But the fact remains, his first published short story was the first installment of Fast One, in the March, 1932 issue of Black Mask. To start, right out of the gate, with the beginning of one of the greatest hardboiled novels, in an issue of Black Mask – that’s a testament to his ability as a writer.

Raymond Chandler famously referred to Fast One as “some kind of high point in the hardboiled manner.” That’s not an overstatement. It’s a breathless, rocket-paced novel; but far more than just guys shooting guns in every scene. With its definitive final sentence, Fast One is the seminal hardboiled novel.

This could have been a classic hardboiled/noir film. It was used somewhat loosely for Gambling Boat, starring a very young Cary Grant. While The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and even the play, Out of the Fog, were wonderfully brought to the screen, Fast One was treated rather shabbily.

But that doesn’t change the fact that this book is a terrific read, that won’t let you take a break. Paul Cain truly was a pulp master.

 

Other Steeger Books Intros I’ve Written:

Hugh B. Cave’s Peter Kane
Norbert Davis in Black Mask – Volume 1
Norbert Davis’ Max Latin
Dashiell Hammett – ZigZags of Treachery
T.T. Flynn’s Mike & Trixie (The ‘Lost Intro’)
John Lawrence’s Cass Blue

Prior Posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2024 Series (7)

Will Murray on Dashiell Hammett’s Elusive Glass Key
Ya Gotta Ask – Reprise
Rex Stout’s “The Mother of Invention”
Dime Detective, August, 1941
John D. MacDonald’s “Ring Around the Readhead”
Harboiled Manila – Raoul Whitfield’s Jo Gar
7 Upcoming A (Black) Gat in the Hand Attractions

Prior Posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2023 Series (15)

Back Down those Mean Streets in 2023
Will Murray on Hammett Didn’t Write “The Diamond Wager”
Dashiell Hammett – ZigZags of Treachery
Ten Pulp Things I Think I Think
Evan Lewis on Cleve Adams
T,T, Flynn’s Mike & Trixie (The ‘Lost Intro’)
John Bullard on REH’s Rough and Ready Clowns of the West – Part I (Breckenridge Elkins)
John Bullard on REH’s Rough and Ready Clowns of the West – Part II
William Patrick Murray on Supernatural Westerns, and Crossing Genres
Erle Stanley Gardner’s ‘Getting Away With Murder (And ‘A Black (Gat)’ turns 100!)
James Reasoner on Robert E. Howard’s Trail Towns of the old West
Frank Schildiner on Solomon Kane
Paul Bishop on The Fists of Robert E. Howard
John Lawrence’s Cass Blue
Dave Hardy on REH’s El Borak

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2022 Series (16)
Asimov – Sci Fi Meets the Police Procedural
The Adventures of Christopher London
Weird Menace from Robert E. Howard
Spicy Adventures from Robert E. Howard
Thrilling Adventures from Robert E. Howard
Norbert Davis’ “The Gin Monkey”
Tracer Bullet
Shovel’s Painful Predicament
Back Porch Pulp #1
Wally Conger on ‘The Hollywood Troubleshooter Saga’
Arsenic and Old Lace
David Dodge
Glen Cook’s Garrett, PI
John Leslie’s Key West Private Eye
Back Porch Pulp #2
Norbert Davis’ Max Latin

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2021 Series (7 )

The Forgotten Black Masker – Norbert Davis
Appaloosa
A (Black) Gat in the Hand is Back!
Black Mask – March, 1932
Three Gun Terry Mack & Carroll John Daly
Bounty Hunters & Bail Bondsmen
Norbert Davis in Black Mask – Volume 1

Prior posts in A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2020 Series (21)
Hardboiled May on TCM
Some Hardboiled streaming options
Johnny O’Clock (Dick Powell)
Hardboiled June on TCM
Bullets or Ballots (Humphrey Bogart)
Phililp Marlowe – Private Eye (Powers Boothe)
Cool and Lam
All Through the Night (Bogart)
Dick Powell as Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
Hardboiled July on TCM
YTJD – The Emily Braddock Matter (John Lund)
Richard Diamond – The Betty Moran Case (Dick Powell)
Bold Venture (Bogart & Bacall)
Hardboiled August on TCM
Norbert Davis – ‘Have one on the House’
with Steven H Silver: C.M. Kornbluth’s Pulp
Norbert Davis – ‘Don’t You Cry for Me’
Talking About Philip Marlowe
Steven H Silver Asks you to Name This Movie
Cajun Hardboiled – Dave Robicheaux
More Cool & Lam from Hard Case Crime

A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2019 Series (15)
Back Deck Pulp Returns
A (Black) Gat in the Hand Returns
Will Murray on Doc Savage
Hugh B. Cave’s Peter Kane
Paul Bishop on Lance Spearman
A Man Called Spade
Hard Boiled Holmes
Duane Spurlock on T.T. Flynn
Andrew Salmon on Montreal Noir
Frank Schildiner on The Bad Guys of Pulp
Steve Scott on John D. MacDonald’s ‘Park Falkner’
William Patrick Murray on The Spider
John D. MacDonald & Mickey Spillane
Norbert Davis goes West(ern)
Bill Crider on The Brass Cupcake

A (Black) Gat in the Hand – 2018 Series (32)
George Harmon Coxe
Raoul Whitfield
Some Hard Boiled Anthologies
Frederick Nebel’s Donahue
Thomas Walsh
Black Mask – January, 1935
Norbert Davis’ Ben Shaley
D.L. Champion’s Rex Sackler
Dime Detective – August, 1939
Back Deck Pulp #1
W.T. Ballard’s Bill Lennox
Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Phantom Crook (Ed Jenkins)
Day Keene
Black Mask – October, 1933
Back Deck Pulp #2
Black Mask – Spring, 2017
Erle Stanley Gardner’s ‘The Shrieking Skeleton’
Frank Schildiner’s ‘Max Allen Collins & The Hard Boiled Hero’
A (Black) Gat in the Hand: William Campbell Gault
A (Black) Gat in the Hand: More Cool & Lam From Hard Case Crime
MORE Cool & Lam!!!!
Thomas Parker’s ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’
Joe Bonadonna’s ‘Hardboiled Film Noir’ (Part One)
Joe Bonadonna’s ‘Hardboiled Film Noir’ (Part Two)
William Patrick Maynard’s ‘The Yellow Peril’
Andrew P Salmon’s ‘Frederick C. Davis’
Rory Gallagher’s ‘Continental Op’
Back Deck Pulp #3
Back Deck Pulp #4
Back Deck Pulp #5
Joe ‘Cap’ Shaw on Writing
Back Deck Pulp #6
The Black Mask Dinner

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Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories – Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.