Sun 10 Nov 2013
PETER RABE – My Lovely Executioner. Gold Medal #967, paperback original; 1st printing, February 1960. Five Star, hardcover, 1999. Stark House Press (with Agreement to Kill), trade paperback, 2006.
It’s my opinion — and so far’s I know, nobody else’s — that Peter Rabe should have a name in the mystery field comparable to some of those writing in the heyday of Black Mask magazine. No, not a top-notcher like Hammett or Chandler, but more along the lines of a Raoul Whitfield, say.
Like the one at hand, much of Rabe’s work seems to have been devoted to inside glimpses into life in the underworld. Tough, sexy, hard-boiled — all are adjectives that seem to apply. To a certain extent, it occasionally takes some work to read in between the lines Rabe wrote, as if you really had to think like a crook to make the pieces of the puzzle fit together the way they should.
This one opens with a guy named Gallivan as he’s being busted out of prison. Non-voluntarily, it should be added. He has only three weeks to go before his time is up. Now he’s on the run, aided by the prison-mate who helped spring him, along with a girl named Jessie whom the other guy seems to know.
Gallivan’s problem is threefold: what’s their motive; how can he escape them; and should he escape them? Add another: can he escape them?
Not a major story, by any means. There are no big scenes that stand out in your memory afterwards, ones you’d automatically think of when you think of this book. There are a lot of little ones, though, each one individually hardly worth a mention, but each one etched in its way in a small semblance of perfection.
Rating: B
November 11th, 2013 at 8:14 am
I have a stack of Peter Rabe’s Gold Medal paperbacks and I agree that he is one of the better hard-boiled writers.
November 11th, 2013 at 10:12 am
Walker
You probably agreed me about Rabe back in in 1982 when I wrote this review, and there were a few other collectors of Gold Medal paperbacks even then — Bill Crider’s name comes to mind — but I think that my first paragraph was substantially correct. Even though his reputation is fairly high now, Peter Rabe was pretty much unknown at the time.
November 11th, 2013 at 12:06 pm
The problem putting Rabe up with the Hammetts and whomever is that he wasn’t as influential as those guys. While all their voices may be unique, some of the greats are easier to imitate or write in that same style. Not so with Rabe. Trying to write like him would be like a contemporary author trying to write like James Lee Burke or Ken Bruen: they’d come off like people trying to write like James Lee Burke or Ken Bruen. The style is too strong.
The question of influence aside, and just considering quality, Rabe is certainly among my top favorites of all time. No question. Nobody ever wrote like him, and nobody ever could. Almost by definition he remains an island.
November 11th, 2013 at 1:47 pm
I collected all books by Peter Rabe but not all are first editions. I have only read some of them. My favourite Rabe novel is ANATOMY OF A KILLER.
November 11th, 2013 at 2:32 pm
You’re quite right; Rabe is up there with the best of them.
November 11th, 2013 at 8:33 pm
I first encountered Rabe in the 70’s when he was writing Mob books to profit off the Godfather craze and I spent a long time tracking down his earlier work. I have to say, it was more than worth it. He could also be funny as in his Manny DeWitt (that was the name wasn’t it) spy novels fo GM.
November 15th, 2013 at 9:04 am
Steve, I completely agree with your assessment of Peter Rabe. I’ve read plenty of his work and it’s very uneven. But when Rabe is on his game, he’s top-notch. I’m glad STARK HOUSE is making his novels available again.