Thanks to Stark House Press, we are getting some much-needed reissues in crime fiction. Now available in a single edition, SHAKE HIM TILL HE RATTLES and IT’S COLD OUT THERE are two lesser-known Malcolm Braly titles that have been out of print way too long and both written while he was serving time in San Quentin. (You know, where that great Johnny Cash live album was recorded.) I have to agree with Ed Gorman’s introduction, comparing the ex-con Braly’s writing to that of Charles Willeford. I also get the feeling that Ed Bunker (another former convict, later a RESERVOIR DOG) must have read some of Braly’s work.
SHAKE HIM TILL HE RATTLES welcomes us to the seedier side of the Beat culture, where people are always on the make to score, and we’re not talking about sports. Down-and-out jazz musican Lee Cabiness seems to have enough talent to take him far, but he just wants to get high. Not wishing to be bothered, Cabiness is just a pill popper and a pothead who won’t touch the hard stuff. A crooked cop called Carver has it out for Lee, for some reason never fully explained. Carver sets up a junkie playwright to be his stoolie, plying him with a steady supply to feed his habit.
It turns out Carver is also hooked on heroin, but hides the fact to great effect. Lee goes about his life, trying to make a little money here and there playing with his friends, all while trying to hold interest in a girl named Jean. Until one day, a slumming rich girl by the name of Claire enters his world, and she’s expermenting with all kinds of drugs and sex. Lee is “taken care of” by Claire, to the point that it finally dawns on him he’s just a glorified gigolo. The story continues at a nice clip, with one of Lee’s pals dying from a hot shot. (For those unfamilar with drug culture literature, that would be heroin mixed with strychnine or some other type of poison.) You can really tell the author knows of what he speaks and paints a very vivid picture of a world of junkies and jazz.
The book’s second half, IT’S COLD OUT THERE, is a novel about J.D., a recently paroled ex-con just trying to do whats right, which best sums up the basic gist of this story. We meet him trying to sell encyclopedias door to door, with no real luck. He hawks his wares to an apartment complex filled with a cast of crazy characters, including a cartoonist just scraping by, a single mother with kids, a family of check forgers and a woman named Kristie, who is slowly losing her mind.
As is obvious on all fronts, J.D. is just not cut out for this type of work, from being pretty much thrown out of one apartment by a short-tempered crook to Kristie sexually fantasizing about J.D. in her delusional mind. She likes to play men off of each other and claims to receive anonymous obscene phone calls that no one else has heard. She’s not playing with a full deck at all, which doesn’t bode well for J.D. once he beds her. Worse, the one sale he makes is to an old man who passes him a fake check under someone else’s name.
From here on out, J.D. tries his best and ends up getting treated like crap throughout. Even people he helps out rip him off at the first chance they get. You get the feeling Braly must have felt the same way, with him getting in and out of prison many a time in his life. The hopelessness of the character suggests that this is a man who can neither function nor survive in the outside world anymore. In J.D.’s case, he tries his hardest, thinking that Kristie will be his forever. Then she convinces him to rob her old boss so they can have the funds to run off togther. I mean, this book is just one punch in the stomach after another. It’s like a noir version of a Thomas Hardy novel.
Braly writes like a sad sack like no other in a never-ending succession of bad times; while depressing, the result is fascinating. I highly recommend this two-in-one collection – hopefully not the last of Braly’s work from Stark House – with only one small quibble: the artwork. To better appeal to those looking for a pulp-type fix, take a page from Hard Case Crime. That said, I can’t wait to tear into another reissue from Stark House. Crime fans are better off with an indie imprint like them now in the world. –Bruce Grossman
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The book sounds great. Especially with a con writing and a good dose of beat era culture. That cover is sad, though.