Gil Brewer (1922–1983)

A lusty tale of a guy who goes to visit an old military pal and his wife. His friend seems like a shell of his former self and his wife is hot to trot. Murder and mayhem ensue.

A great deal of this book consists of the narrator lusting for his friend's wife and trying (not very hard) to fight his urges. While not explicit, it is a pretty frank and sassy novel for something published in 1951.

Brewer really sucked me in with his simple but effective prose and quick-paced story telling.

This a show more tawdry story. The narrator is a scumbag who cheats on his fiance with his best friends' wife, beats her, and whines about being unable to be anything other than a jerk.

That being said, I loved this one! Engrossing and fun! show less

This is a twisted piece of crime fiction about greed and lust. Beautiful 18 year old Shirley Angela is the adopted daughter and carer of the elderly invalid Victor, but she feels angry trapped and miserable looking after the old man. When TV repairman Jack arrives to install a new intercom system the pair immediately fall for each other. They’re soon lovers and before long are hatching a plot to get rid of Victor and make off with his money. It’s never that easy however, as there’s show more nothing like money to come between lovers. Originally published in the 1950s, the novel is a marvellously written book full of a dark noir momentum and a sense of doomed inevitability. Brewster’ story and writing overflows with murderous intent and a relentlessly growing paranoia. Shirley and Jack are marvellously drawn flawed (possibly psychopathic) characters whose actions spiral out of their control before ending in one of the most horrifically retributive climaxes in all of noir fiction. Gripping and entertaining throughout “The Vengeful Virgin” is a deadly morality play about lust for money and the sordid downside of the “American Dream”. show less

Gil Brewer should be better known than he is. This book is a masterpiece
from cover to cover. It is up there with the best of Jim Thompson's
work. The descriptions of the people, the places, and the moods are
crazy good. This is noir as it was meant to be. A man is down on his
luck, way down. His wife, Ruby, is at least nine months ready and he
hasn't found a lick of work in six months or more. Selling the last of
his gun collection ought to pay a few bills. So he goes to his favorite show more
bartender to sell it. Trouble finds him though in the person of Ralph
Anger, who is do aptly named. And, hours of pure terror with a crazed
gunman ensue. This book is so good you'll want to read it again as
soon asyou finish it show less

It begins with Lew Brookbank drunkenly driving up the Florida highways in the middle of the night with a bottle of gin and a bunch of signs. The mood of this piece starts right at the beginning. "The bottle is on the floor of the car. He reached in, brought it out, uncapped it, and read the label." He hated Florida and wished he could get away from it -from "every last flat wet stinking acre." "He drove sullenly now, feeling the rotten core of what was always with him, down inside his show more vitals, squeezing and tugging at his heart." He has plenty to drink about. It had been four months earlier "when he had swum out to Clarkson's yacht, the Bayou Belle, and found his wife, Janice, and that pop-eyed Lousiana on one of the bunks in the deck cabin. Thinking of it again, remembering the everlasting pain, his heart seemed to squeeze dry like a sponge. Like a scream." And with that, the reader is lost inside Lew's world - Lew's painful, alcoholic, depressed world. Of course, he didn't just catch Janice in the act, but remembered: "Janice's face was frozen in the throes of her lust. Whether or not death changed things, her eyes were glazed with that wild, wanton, uncaring passion."

He left that city and found another town, another name, another life. Made a sort of living painting signs and drinking. Until one night, he overhears a couple plotting what might be a kidnapping and murder of a man's wife and thinks he can figure out a way to cut himself into the boodle that is going to paid in ransom. "Somehow she didn't' appear to be the type of dame who would plot murder. Her face was faintly heart-shaped under a dark blonde mass of rich ringlets, swept up around her head." "She walked a shade on the balls of her feet, her behind bouncing, her skirt clinging tightly to her hips and thighs. It wasn't overdone, but it had tremendous sock and she knew it."

It is a terrific story. It is solidly noir. It is dark, foreboding, depressing, miserable. Boy, can Brewer write. This story just sails along and it is filled with intense emotion and solid description. show less