Reviewed by TONY BAER:

   

GRAHAM GREENE – Brighton Rock. William Heinemann Ltd,. UK, hardcover, 1938. Viking Press, US, hardcover, 1938. Reprinted numerous times. Film: Produced and directed by John and Roy Boulting, UK, 1948. It starred Richard Attenborough as Pinkie, with Carol Marsh as Rose. Released in the US as Young Scarface.

   So I’ve been a bit of a jingoist when it comes to hardboiled lit. My default take has been that it was originally an American phenomenon and that British hardboiled was generally pastiche (save for later writers like Derek Raymond and Ted Lewis, for example). I’ll admit it. I was wrong. I wasn’t necessarily wrong about Peter Cheyney and James Hadley Chase. But I was wrong for thinking that Cheyney and Chase were representative of British hardboiled.

   In America anyway, hardboiled lit was clearly part of the zeitgeist in the 1920’s-30’s. The amount of amazing stuff from a host of different writers is simply astounding. And the more I read stuff from the era, the more convinced I am that the hardboiled era of lit in America is not simply a matter of a couple of exceptional artists that randomly appeared (e.g. Hemingway and Hammett). Rather, there was really a hardboiled aesthetic movement of some kind.

   (See, for example, Geoffrey O’Brien’s Hardboiled Checklist, link hopefully to follow. UPDATE: See comments.)

   Not a conscious or organized movement (except perhaps as a result of Cap Shaw’s admonitions to would be Black Mask authors to pattern their stories on Hammett); but rather simply a matter of a confluence of factors enabling a market for underworld vernacular and blue collar speech patterns to make their way into popular literature. The combination of cheap paper production capacities (e.g. ‘pulp), literacy of the masses, leisure time (whether due to limited working hours or high unemployment), and other factors seem to have generated a perfect storm enabling a commercial space for hardboiled literature.

   In any case, contrary to my initial instincts, this does not seem to just be an American phenomenon. See, for example, this terrific list of British hardboiled lit:

      https://www.deadgoodbooks.co.uk/top-ten-british-noir-titles-yesteryear/

   So, anyway, I recently read Brighton Rock. And I’m here to tell you, the book is a freaking masterpiece of hardboiled lit. It is pretty much perfect in every way: expertly plotted with a perfect ending, credible, earthy underworld prose, crime, murder, detection and rough-hewn justice. It was messy, dirty, unshaven and soused, and it didn’t care who knew it. It was everything the well-dressed hardboiled novel ought to be.

   There’s a gang war happening in Brighton. Kite’s gang has the rough and tumble street kids shaking down the local businesses offering ‘protection’ for a monthly fee. Take it or be damned. The other gang is slicker, run more like the mob by a ‘Mr. Colleoni’. He handles the slots and table gambling.

   But capitalism must always grow. Burroughs says: ‘When you stop growing you start dying’. So Kite tries to take the slots and Colleoni the shakedowns.

   Kite loses and is killed. And ‘Pinkie’, a 17 year old punk with the morality of a crushed stone, takes over Kite’s gang.

   First piece of business is revenge for Kite. Pinkie sets his eyes on Kite’s finger man — a pretty low level member of the Colleoni mob. Name of Hale.

            â€œHale knew they meant to murder him before he had been in Brighton three hours.”

   So Hale tries to hide from Pinkie and the rest of Kite’s crew. He figures if he can pick up a woman and stay with her that he’ll be safe. So he does. Her name is Ida Arnold. She’s a husky, maternal, buxom bosomed broad with a deep laugh, who loves to sing and dance and drink a draught or two of bitter stout.

   Hale feels safer under Ida’s large wing. I have to go to the toilet, though, she says. Oh please don’t, he begs. It’ll just be a minute, says Ida — why so clingy? Oh, it’s nothing. I’ll be right here, Hale says. Don’t be long.

   And Ida’s not. She’s not long. But Hale’s not long for this world. And when Ida returns from the pot, Hale’s gone. No where to be found. Til the morning.

   So Hale’s washed up ashore. And Ida feels really bad about it. She feels a bit responsible for Hale—and she resolves to find his killer.

   The cops are corrupt — and Colleoni doesn’t want Hale’s death classified as a murder, lest his reputation take a hit. So the cops rule it a natural death.

   Ida ain’t satisfied. So she becomes the de facto sleuth.

   She haunts Pinkie and his gang. She won’t give up until she finds out what happened and brings Hale some justice.

   Not to give anything away — but Ida isn’t somebody to bet against. She’s a terrific creation, all gumption and strength. A whirlwind of wine, bosom and song. Pinkie in her sights.

   There’s also some interesting morality in the background, as is Greene’s wont, about right and wrong versus good and evil. Turns out Pinkie was raised Catholic. And as soon as he’s committed a mortal sin, he figures he’s damned anyway so nothing matters. Once he commits his first mortal sin, he’s free to commit as many more as he likes. As long as he seeks absolution ‘between the stirrup and the ground’, he’ll be saved.

   Ida, on the other hand, doesn’t believe in good or evil. She only believes in right and wrong. She thinks that killing Hale was wrong, and she’s there to right it. Ida won’t give up until she does. Nor will you.