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Title: A Killer is Loose

Author: Gil Brewer

Narrator: Zach Hanks

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-10-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Suspense

Publisher's Summary:

He shot Jake Halloran in the head, then turned to me, smiling, the Luger held loosely in his right hand.

Hello, pal, he said. My names Ralph Angers. Whats yours?

Thats how I met him, this grave-looking, clean-cut, totally mad young man, who walked through my town with a gun, leaving a wake of tears and agony and murder behind him.

Members Reviews:

This Book Will Blow Your Mind

If I could write a novel one-tenth as good as this one, I would. Gil Brewer should be better known than he is. This book is a masterpiece from cover to cover. It is up there with the best of Jim Thompson's work. The descriptions of the people, the places, and the moods are crazy good. This is noir as it was meant to be. A man is down on his luck, way down. His wife, Ruby, is at least nine months ready and he hasn't found a lick of work in six months or more. Selling the last of his gun collection ought to pay a few bills. So he goes to his favorite bartender to sell it. Trouble finds him though in the person of Ralph Anger, who is do aptly named. And, hours of pure terror with a crazed gunman ensue. This book is so good you'll want to read it again as soon asyou finish it.

I wished I liked this a lot more than I do

As the other review here says, this is considered a classic of hardboiled crime/noir among some people. Hapless protagonist accidentally saves the life of a stone-cold psychopath who takes a liking to him -- and then they go out have some wacky misadventures.

I kid, but that really is part of the problem. This is a very episodic book: when it works, and it does in sections, it works in *moments*. The first two killings and the episode of the piano-playing girl are all excellent, Brewer gets the prose just right here and manages to convey both the offhand madness of the villain and something of the terror involved. The book does succeed sporadically.

The problem though is that Brewer has to tell a full story here, not just a sucession of "scenes", and the book doesn't really cohere as a whole. It doesn't make sense. While certain characters behave very believably, others don't give relevant information, or behave in strange ways to keep the plot going. The villain at times is a nightmarish monster right from some slasher flick (and is very believable as such) ...but at times is meant to be sympathetic too, and the whipsawing stance doesn't help the suspension of disbelief. (This is, I've discovered, a very common fault with books from this era. Whether it's space constraints or publishing restraints or simply a talent issue, they often didn't get the psychology right.)

I think basically the problem is that this is an idea for a story or a setup for a story -- not a story. "I met a psycho who took an interest in me" is not a story. It's an idea. "I met a psycho who took an interest in me -- I was scared, but I discovered one of his targets was somebody I cared about, and so I overcame my fear to try and stop him" is. (Of course, that's the plot of the movie COLLATERAL.) Notice how none of the characters really have arcs -- unlike Jim Thompson's two classics. They end up pretty much where they started, a little worse for the wear maybe but the story didn't seem to change them any. And why should it? It's meant to be a thrill machine.

(The idea that this is as good Thompson's two masterpieces is absurd, typical Pronzini over-effusion.