You Play the Black and the Red Comes Up

Rating:
Summary: Superbly paced hardboiled novel
Review: An unjustly neglected classic, fast-paced, funny but with considerable pathos--with a well-orchestrated group of characters and plenty of incident in a relative handful of pages. All the more impressive because it was written by a Yorkshireman who set himself the task of mastering American vernacular, both in narrative and dialogue. Imagine a combination of James M. Cain and Nathanael West and you'll have a sense of the overall tone and approach; hard to believe that the author also wrote Lassie, Come Home!