Fast One (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

Rating:
Summary: True beginning of the noir genre
Review: A keen dive into L.A. noir, before anyone else, and a likely influence to Hammett's Red Harvest and its subsequent manifestations, from Yojimbo to A Few Dollars More to film Last Man Standing. Not the same story, however. Great voice- hear the word "homeboy" used correctly in context from nearly seventy years ago. Ellroy's White Jazz is possibly the only evolutionary offspring.

Rating:
Summary: FAST ONE
Review: After devouring the work of Chester Himes, Charles Willeford, James Ross and other unjustly forgotten hard-boiled greats, it seemed inevitable that I'd read Cain's FAST ONE. I'd heard nothing but praise for it. The fact that it was out of print and expensive even as a Black Lizard paperback reissue upped my expectations even more.
But I became disappointed with it very quickly. The prose is remarkably sharp and truncated, yes, but also lacks almost all descriptive detail and consistently focuses only on dialogue. Often it reads like a screenplay. The pacing of the novel is just plain manic-- in the thirties this must have seemed exciting and original, but now that MTV style jump-cut editing has proliferated and influenced all mediums, sheer speed seems cliche. This novel is "noir" in the traditional sense of the word: gangsters and stupid dames and violence that never seems to hurt the protagonist... ho hum.
There's hardly any social commentary, either. Although this novel does seem to be a sort of Magnetic North for traditional American crime fiction, I have to say I found it difficult to get through and somewhat mediocre.

Rating:
Summary: Tougher than a twenty minute egg
Review: Every fan of Chandler and Hammet owes it to themselves to DEMAND that their local mystery store carry this book. From the tough as nails dialog to the bleak ending, bitter as a bucket of limes, this is the penultimate hardboiled novel. Fast One makes Grafton, Cornwall, et al look like lukewarm consommé at a spinsterish tearoom. The literary equivalent to a baseball bat baptism