Wed 4 Oct 2023
GIL BREWER – The Red Scarf. Crest 310; paperback reprint, July 1959; cover art by Robert McGinnis. Hardcover: Mystery House, 1958. Stark House, paperback, 2-in-1 edition with A Killer Is Loose, June 2018. First published in Mercury Mystery Book-Magazine, November 1955 (probably abridged).
Roy Nichols has a dream. A mediocre dream, maybe. But it’s his. To run a motel with his wife, who he adores. He’s got the motel. And he’s got the wife. The problem is, the motel is in the red, and the bank’s gonna foreclose if he can’t come up with a lump sum quick.
So Roy visits his rich brother. Who turns him down. I’m doing it for you, he says. Wouldn’t want to hurt your pride by giving you the money. Plus, it’s bad for you to be beholden to anybody. Best thing is to pull yourself up by your bootstraps — stop relying on other people to bail you out.
So that’s that. No money. And he doesn’t know what the hell he’s gonna do now. Except lose the hotel, and his dreams, and disappoint his wife who deserves better. Who deserves the world.
He decides to hitchhike home to save what little money he has left.
There’s a Bonnie & Clyde looking couple at the greasy spoon, and he flirts with the sexy Bonnie and gloms himself a ride. Then they crash and there’s a briefcase. With all the money you’d ever need. Plenty to pay off the bank and much besides.
But the money ain’t free and clear. It’s mob money. And hot.
The Clyde-looking guy looks asdead as a crash test dummy, so our protagonist and the Bonnie-looking lass make a run for it. To help her get away, she promises half the money. And all of her body. And he accepts. Lustily.
He hides her out in a room in his motel. And the mob shows up.
Roy Nichols is such an asshole it’s hard to root for him. He says he loves his wife, and she is clearly devoted to him, and beautiful. Yet he’s a complete douchebag, sleeping with whatever the cat dragged in and lying about it. If he reminds me of anybody, maybe it’s William H. Macy in Fargo. He’s a greedy wimp. He’s hard to root for.
So when the mob comes to town you figure he’ll finally wake up and get the cops involved. But no. Not Roy Nichols! He’s going to outsmart the mob, pay off his bank loan, and things are gonna be milk and honey from here on out.
Except the mob isn’t nearly as stupid as Roy Nichols thinks. And neither is his wife.
He’s a loser who keeps on losing. You don’t like him enough to care if he succeeds. You don’t hate him enough to care if he fails. So, at the end of the day, I just didn’t care what happened one way or the other.
You’ve heard of love/hate relationships. With Gil Brewer I wouldn’t go that far. I’ve got more of a somewhat-appreciate/hate relationship with him. A Killer Is Loose and 13 French Street are quite successful in their way. Kind of perverted John D. MacDonald/Jim Thompson standalones. Which is high praise.
But Brewer’s always got a creepy vibe. His protagonists are all lecherous. Even when they think they’re being stand-up guys, every woman they see, they want. And not in an upfront Mike Hammer way. More in a side-eyed repressive lust that takes whatever’s there, and wants whatever isn’t. Vulturous. Sepulcherous. Whatever carrion it can carry away.
It just leaves me standing there. Mouth agape. Rubber-necking. Shaking my head in disgust.
October 4th, 2023 at 9:22 pm
As so it happens, this book has been reviewed twice before on this blog.
First by Bill Pronzini:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=1284
And then by me:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=18702
October 5th, 2023 at 1:31 pm
Your reaction to this book is the same as mine whenever I try to read anything by Orrie Hitt, say. That I need to take a shower afterward. I think Brewer often verged to the edge of sleaze more often than other writers for Gold Medal around the same time. You seem to have picked up on some bad vibes with this one. I’d have to read this one again in order to say more.
You can find a good essay on Orrie Hitt’s work here:
https://www.criminalelement.com/orrie-hitt-the-shakespeare-of-shabby-street-hall-of-fame-pulp-brian-greene/
October 5th, 2023 at 3:14 pm
Steve,
The thing with Brewer is that no matter who the male protagonist is, they inevitably give me a creepy sex predator vibe. At least Hitt was expressly writing sleaze—so the sex predators were able to consummate their desires with
October 5th, 2023 at 3:21 pm
….nymphomaniacs conjured from an adolescent boy’s wet dreams.
October 5th, 2023 at 6:56 pm
After going back and reading the previous two reviews of this same book (Pronzini & Lewis)
it seems they liked this book much better than you did, Tony. And on the Pronzini review, he said that Anthony Boucher thought it was Brewer’s best book! And Pronzini agreed. I’m sure I read this many years ago, but don’t remember anything about it. I’ve read many Brewer’s over the years and he’s MOSTLY very good. I do remember reading “Three Way Split” and liking it very much. I even liked the movie that was made from same. All these pbo writers had at least one stinker among them. Except of course Charles Williams, who is probably my favorite GM writer of all.
October 5th, 2023 at 7:46 pm
Paul,
I think I might be an outlier in my distaste for Gil Brewer. Couldn’t agree more on Charles Williams. He is consistently terrific.
October 5th, 2023 at 7:53 pm
I think what made me dislike this book more than others by Brewer are the protagonist’s consistently stupid choices. It’s not a case of one bad decision leading to disaster. It’s one bad decision after another. Almost completely irrational. Not crazy. Just idiotic. Like if you purposely chose the worst option on a multiple choice test every single time. It gets to the point where you start rooting against the protagonist as a matter of karma.
October 5th, 2023 at 7:53 pm
I think the word we may all be looking for is seamy. Brewer’s protagonists reflect that seaminess, and frankly either Brewer is exceptional at creating that feeling or as Tony suggests drawing on less attractive aspects of his own character. I don;t know enough to guess either way.
To give him the benefit of the doubt there was a certain vibe out of James M. Cain by way of Film Noir and Erskine Caldwell in that era and this fits right in with it.
I’ve a more favorable attitude to it than Tony, but only because the narrative pace was racing enough it never felt as if Brewer was slumming or dragging the reader with him. It’s one of those books that if it was one word longer it might be too much, but it was mostly just right.
Still, I think Tony has a valid point.