Fast One

I am a huge fan of classic hard-boiled fiction, but damn, this is just impenetrable, full of passages like this:

--"Listen. Doc went to Perry's to see me...What for? I was with Jack Rose being propositioned to come in with him and Doc, on the Joanna. They're evidently figuring Fay and Hesse to make things tough and wanted me for a flash."--

and

--"Rose called Eddie O'Donnell and me after you left him this afternoon. He said Dave Perry had called while you were there - told him that Doc was at the joint in Hollywood waiting for you...Perry knew Rose was going to have Doc bumped - an' he knew Rose wanted to frame it for you...It looked like a good play."--

Hello, come again? Since there are no characters in this novel, only ciphers with names show more attached, all of this is literally impossible to follow. Although written in apparently grammatical English sentences, it might as well be Basque for all the sense one can make of it. "Fast One" has an abstract quality that some readers have championed, but I have not been able to get into it.

UPDATE: The bleak final chapter is memorable and gooses the rating a half-point. show less

Fast One by Paul Cain is a very dark and violent gangster story. It has become known as the “most hard-boiled novel of the 1930s and for the mystery surrounding the actual identity of the author. Paul Cain’s real name was allegedly George Carrol Sims, he worked in Hollywood as a screen writer under the name of Peter Ruric. He was notoriously closed mouth about his origins.

As for the book, I was not a fan. I found the story rather choppy and the writing was nowhere near the level of his contemporaries like Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler. The main character in this story, Gerry Kells has apparently decided that he should be the kingpin of the gangster world in L. A. The plot is full of double-crosses, guns and fists, loose women show more and gambling money. This story moves quickly, but mostly from one scene of violence to another. There is very little character development, just one complication after another for Kells. In fact, it was often difficult to distinguish one character from another as they tended to all sound the same.

While Fast One has a place in history as a key work in the development of the hard-boiled crime novel, I personally require more finesse in the plotting, more development of the characters, and a little more subtlety in my action scenes. show less

Paul Cain is a bit of an enigma, a terrific writer who published only one novel and some short stories before pretty much disappearing from print and from history. (At least, easily uncovered history.) His one novel, FAST ONE, is as hardboiled as anything I've ever read. It reminds me a good deal of Dashiell Hammett's classic RED HARVEST, inasmuch as it has a central figure pitting various groups of nasty folk against each other. The one drawback I have with the book is that the plethora of characters are not well separated one from another, descriptively, and I had a hard time keeping them separate in my mind. Only reaching midway through the book could I picture an individual whenever I saw a character's name. This quibble aside, FAST show more ONE is a dark and dirty crime novel with great writing and a compelling story. show less

Excellent action. Some of the best I've read. And unlike Hammet the characters are affecting; and unlike Chandler the bullets and saps to the back of the head are real and hurt for a long time afterwards.

Hammett's Continental Op stories have a fellow detective who the narrator describes as speaking like a telegraph. Cain's Fast One pretty much reads like a telegraph. Everything has been squeezed out. Not an added piece of character or description anywhere. A Reader's Digest condensation would be impossible. The final sentence was effective however.

http://www.fireandsword.com/Reviews/fastone.html

Fast One is Paul Cain’s novel of corruption and underworld warfare. Like other hard-boiled novels of the era it is set in the grit and glory of LA, but instead of a PI dedicated to bringing a criminal to justice, this is a tale of an outlaw’s struggle to survive. Gerry Kells is a war-hero, junkie, gambler, and gangster who just wants to leave the rackets behind for a little peace and quiet. But it doesn’t work that way in LA. He is drawn into a spiral of violence as rival underworld factions use him as a pawn. Unfortunately for them Kells is nobody’s fool and mayhem ensues.

ho hum...can't get through it