Just Finished Reading: The Wounded and the Slain by David Goodis (FP: 1955)

James Bevan it at the end of his tether. Drinking heavily, failing at his job and barely speaking to his beautiful but aloof wife he takes his doctor’s advice and takes a vacation on Jamaica. Trapped in the hotel surrounded by high walls and crushing poverty Bevan watches helplessly as his wife begins flirting with another man. Sickened by his seeming inability to do anything about it he leaves the hotel and proceeds to get roaring drunk in the seediest dive he can find. When a fight breaks out his drunken mind decides he needs to be somewhere else to keep drinking in peace. Leaving the shanty bar he is followed out onto the filthy street and mugged. Acting purely on impulse he deflects the knife with a handy empty bottle only to have it smash and rip into his would-be assailant’s throat. Covered in his opponent’s blood he staggers back to the hotel to his waiting and horrified wife. Thinking nothing more of it Bevan decides his close encounter with death is a turning point. A time to start over and make something of his life – until a stranger appears with evidence that he has killed a man in cold blood and a willingness to go to the police and stay whatever he needs to for Bevan to hang.

This is the last of the ten Hard Case crime novels I’ve been working through lately. Generally a rather hit and miss series this was definitely on the miss side. I almost gave up after the first 50 pages which moved at a glacial pace (rather ironic considering the tropical setting). The author seemed to have read a layman’s guide to psychoanalysis and tried very hard indeed to use it to explain the otherwise strange behaviour of both Bevan and his wife who both seemed to go out of their way to make a potentially difficult situation much worse. This was another one of those stories where I had almost no sympathy (or to be honest very much interest) for any of the characters with the possible exception of the local mixed race police commissioner who actually seemed rather interesting considering his brief appearance. There was page after page of characters wandering around in the slums in the dark with a few meaningless encounters along the way none of which moved the narrative along one bit. Frankly the plotting was a mess and at one point I just decided to grit my teeth and finish the damned thing – which I did. My recommendation – save your time and read something else.

Next up – after a brief detour into SF – will be ten 20th century classics in publication date order. After THAT, as I’m definitely missing Sci-Fi at the moment, will be ten novels of man’s struggle with his own technology, but that’s for much later in the year.