Fri 9 May 2025
W. R. BURNETT – The Loop. Stark House, July 2025.
Burnett is deservedly considered one of the original hardboiled masters, having authored Little Caesar, The Asphalt Jungle, and High Sierra. It turns out he left some unpublished manuscripts upon his death. This should be news of the magnitude of discovering a new James M Cain trove. Maybe not Hammett or Chandler — but close.
This one is about a proto-Parker thief, in Chicago for a job: Dooley. 1928. In the Loop.
One of Dooley’s buddies, Hamm, has cased out a caper, and Hamm’s capers are always well oiled and rich.
Dooley needs a score. But when he comes to visit Hamm at his slummy apartment to go over the plans, he has ceased to be, of iron poisoning. A professional job.
Too coincidental. On the night of the plan reveal. It’s gotta be an insider. But who.
Dooley never knew the identity of the other players. But he knows there was a guy to front the costs. Maybe it was that guy. Got the plans and figured to pull it himself. Cut out Hamm’s share. Cut out the brains. Stupid.
Then he sees he’s being tailed by a guy named Shamus, a former cop, kicked off the force for graft. He’s good. But not that good.
He gets Shamus to spill on who hired him for the tail. Promises Shamus a full share of the job in exchange. And Shamus spills.
Revenge for killing his buddy? Not Dooley. There ain’t a percentage in that. Hijacking the job? Now you’re talking.
So Dooley assembles a crew to hijack the thieves after they pull the job. Dooley doesn’t know the heist plans. But he knows who’s planning on pulling it. So he watches ’em, the double crossers. He lurks and awaits his chance to spring on them right after the take.
It’s a springy little number, a nice fast caper novel. Imagine if WR Burnett wrote a Parker novel set in the Loop in 1928. It’s exactly like that. And you know what? He did!
May 9th, 2025 at 3:13 pm
Stark House has already reprinted quite a few of Burnett’s books. It’s pretty neat that they’ve found some more. Quite a coup, I’d say.
May 9th, 2025 at 4:01 pm
Steve,
There’s a nice intro by David Laurence Wilson who got to be kind of an assistant to Burnett. Apparently, to my everlasting dismay, in his later years Burnett (and the classic hardboiled noir school in general) was considered unfashionable, and he had a lot of trouble getting his work published. Which doesn’t leave much hope for the rest of us, does it? Anyway, to hear Wilson tell it, Burnett was simply a born writer. So regardless of whether he could sell anything, it never affected his process, his schedule, his daily rhythm of getting up and writing stories. And his family, to their credit, has preserved many of these manuscripts thru the years, which remain ripe for the picking. Like Pound says, art is news that stays news.
May 9th, 2025 at 5:50 pm
That’s a great story, Tony, and all the better because it’s true.Thanks for passing it along.
May 10th, 2025 at 11:00 pm
A Burnett caper novel I’ve never read. Sign me up.
May 10th, 2025 at 11:40 pm
The book’s not scheduled to appear until July, but review copies are floating around. I think it was abebooks where I found one with a cover image I could use.