Sat 24 Sep 2022
Pulp Stories I’m Reading: WILLIAM R. COX “They’ll Kill Me!” (Then and Now.)
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Reviews[2] Comments
Back then in January 1968. I said:
WILLIAM R. COX “They’ll Kill Me!†Novelette. Tom Kincaid has a murderous competition in his attempt to make a movie about gambling. Low grade Hollywood all the way. (0)
Now:
My opinion hasn’t changed one iota, and I’m not sure why this one simply doesn’t work. It may been that there are too many characters – at least a dozen – that the reader has to recognize and assimilate in too short a time, and none of them are more than stock players in a standard let’s-make-a-Hollywood movie type of yarn (with gangsters thrown in as opposition).
As a matter of fact, though, Tom Kincaid, the leading character, did turn up later in three novel length books written by Cox for Signet as paperback originals between 1958 and 1962. By profession Kincaid is a gambler, but in this story he’s trying his luck as a novice movie producer and director. (He was in fifteen pulp stories in all, all for Dime Mystery in the 1940s.) (0)
September 24th, 2022 at 8:37 pm
I seem to recall reading one of the Kinkaid novels but can’t recall the title. My memory was I enjoyed it, but this one does sound too ambitious for its length.
September 24th, 2022 at 8:50 pm
Here’s a list of the three Kincaid novels. Maybe the titles will help jog your memory:
Hell to Pay (n.) Signet 1958
Murder in Vegas (n.) Signet 1960 [Las Vegas, NV]
Death on Location (n.) Signet 1962 [Nevada]
I had a thought that perhaps the story in DIME MYSTERY was expanded into one of the books — it was certainly busy enough — but most likely not, given the shift in locales to Nevada. And yet — just maybe?