Finished On: 26th of November 2014
First Sentence:
There were three of them.
This is the second novel of all time entertainer James Hadley Chase. If you want to gorge on a thrilling criminal story on a lazy Sunday i’ll always recommend James Hadley Chase. What i like about him is that he doesn’t uses lot of words. He writes precise stories in which each word is important and words and explanations are not inserted just to give the book a volume. When a stranger entered the bar at the Platsville bar, he seemed like another bum. But a little talk from him confirmed that the stranger was an hard ass and was one with whom nobody messes around. Dillon enters Platsville and starts fixing fights. Dillion used to work for a gangster called Nelson and when Nelson’s gang gets busted he comes to this run down town for getting out of the circuit. But it’s been too much time and Dillon wants to be a big shot now. His goal of becoming big shot leads him to fix fights in Plattsville , rob banks and stores and eventually lead a mob. Along with him is Myra, a 17 year old girl, who is as bad as Dillon. She is the ultimate female fatale. What would be the end of this unlikely partnership? Will Dillon,who neither smokes or drinks or is interested in girl, would be seduced by this girl? And how’ll their journey end? These questions would keep you turning the pages of this thrilling novel by Mr Chase.
I loved the novel. The book is all about Dillon. He knows what he wants and gets that. He has got no emotions, uses people and chucks them out when he no longer has any use for them. He know only one way to confrontation, he kills it because he doesn’t like talking and he knows dead stay dumb.
Dillon stayed there, leaning over the desk, his gun still pointing at Hurst, his lips off his teeth.
“Now, you bastard,” he said, “you can stay dumb!”
‘When guys got in his way, he just trampled on them. He had got to live, he told himself, and the others had got to look after themselves.’
Myra is the second main character of the novel. She’s beautiful and ruthless. She was the daughter of one time fighter Butch. She hates her life at Platsville and wants some one who would provide her with riches. This desire to be rich leads her first to the local fight fixer Gurney and eventually to Dillon. She know Dillon is the one who has it to be the big shot and thus give her all the comforts.
The book is full of criminals and their life. This is not the novel where you’ll find a good guy and a bad guy, on the other hand the book is full of characters who have made their life in crime. So if you like a book where there’s lot of killing and non stop action and don’t usually care about triumph of good over evil, you’ll like this book. I know i liked the book.
If you’ve read the book, you can give your view in the comments below.
