Customer Reviews

Fifty-to-One (Hard Case Crime (Mass Market Paperback))

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Series editor Charles Ardai carved himself a nice piece of real estate by deciding to write Hard Case Crime's fiftieth book. On the outside looking in, a lot of people might think this move was merely an ego trip.

But that will change the instant they start turning pages in FIFTY-TO-ONE.

Ardai expertly hooks readers with the story of a small-town girl, Tricia, who comes to New York in the 1950s with stars in her eyes. Unexpectedly left to her own devices by her older sister, Tricia promptly gets swindled by a street con artist. Desperate, she tries to make the best of things and ends up getting hired on as a dance at a mob-run night club. Then she discovers that the guy that conned her is actually a small press publisher of crime and porn fiction who's currently down on his luck.

Pressuring Charles Borden, Tricia finds herself drawn into the crime fiction trade by penning a best-selling "nonfiction" tell-all book about the night club. She describes a robbery that takes place in the club, giving away details that enable an actual robbery to take place after the book comes out. (This attention to detail was one of the things that affected the publishing world several times as writers strove for reality.)

Admittedly, some of the plot twists Ardai takes are self-serving, but they're fun, and they allow him to stay on top of a tightly spun, multi-faceted plot that ultimately satisfies. Tricia, named Trixie at the night club, has the best and worst runs of luck, but they never fail to keep readers turning pages.

FIFTY-TO-ONE is simply the best kind of potboiler. Nothing, no character or situation, remains static for long. As in any good noir tale, loyalties and perspectives change with the wind. For the most part, it is Tricia against the world as she struggles to sort out the mystery of who truly stole the mobster's money and bloody secrets.

The dialogue is shot full of snappy one-liners that would have been at home on Old Time Radio. Ardai hits the lingo on the head, and he throws scenes out at his readers that are at once visceral and real. As I read the book, the movie played in my head. I forgot that the interface was words on a page and simply followed the story through the blindingly quick twists and turns.

Ardai also has a lot of fun sticking in period references to writing and writers. Mickey Spillane (thinly cloaked) puts in an appearance that is at once slapstick. Long-time mystery writers Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake also have small roles that lend to a lot of the history of the paperback market at that time as well as some great humor.

Adopting an added challenge, Ardai uses a title from each of the line's published books as a chapter heading. As a writer myself, I was intrigued by Ardai's choices to pull the chapters into line with the book titles. Plotting is tricky, especially when you're trying to pull off a tightly-knit novel. Some of those chapters work better than others, but they all work.

Fans of the Hard Case Crime books are in for a treat with this one, but it's a great place for readers new to this kind of fiction to jump on for a taste. Ardai also includes color pages of the line's first fifty books. The art on all of the novels is pulpy and sexy. I grew up on this stuff when it was published by Gold Medal, and a cover with a half-dressed woman holding a gun still lures me into picking up the book.

Pick a weekend, kick off your shoes, and sit back for a great read.

"[This game is] called 'Fifty-to-One'. Those are the odds, you see."
"Of winning?"
"Of surviving."

Charley Borden is a publisher, editor, and self-proclaimed rip-off artist. The best-selling book of his publishing line, Hard Case Crime Books, is blatant Mickey Spillane pilferage -- Eye the Jury by Nicky Malone ("a Mac Hatchet mystery") -- and he thrives on bad publicity because it sells books.

But Charley's a likeable sort, so when he asks showgirl Tricia "Trixie" Heverstadt -- who dances in a famous gangster's nightclub but really wants to write for The New Yorker -- to write a true-crime work on her boss's exploits, she is glad to oblige for a penny a word. Only the story she tells -- of the theft of the gangster's millions -- is completely made up.

Or so she thinks. The gangster disagrees; the details of the events depicted in Tricia's novel happened to him exactly the way she wrote them -- down to the combination of the vault -- and he wants to know who the thief was. The police would also like to know the identity of the book's author (published as "Anonymous" to create mystery and sell more books, of course) and no one is going to let up until they get what they want.

Fifty-to-One is the 50th book in the Hard Case Crime line (the real one), founded in 2004 by Charles Ardai and Max Phillips. In recognition of this milestone, Ardai felt a very special sort of book was called for, and he wrote it himself (though Phillips contributed a chapter).

And Ardai really set himself a challenge: to tell a riveting story in 50 chapters, each named after the Hard Case Crime books published up to that point, in chronological order. Chapter 1 is "Grifter's Game," chapter 2 is "Fade to Blonde," etc. (Observant readers will also find references to books 51-55.) And Ardai's story tries its damnedest to deliver what the chapter titles promise.

Along for the ride are a couple of writers named Larry and Don (maybe you've heard of them?), ever-ready with a quip or a caper. Their influence is felt in how Ardai deftly commingles suspense and humor in what is undoubtedly the funniest book Hard Case Crime has published to date. (The humor carries you through a few too many convenient coincidences.) Ardai makes fun of the publishing business, the crime genre, and best of all, he makes fun of himself!

Fifty-to-One is well paced, and it has that pulp-style written-in-a-hurry feel that adds to its sense of immediacy. That said, it also feels a little too long at 330 pages. But it's hard to be too critical of a book that is so obviously a labor of love. Ardai didn't have to write a special book to commemorate Hard Case Crime's 50th "anniversary," so the fact that he wanted to is all the more endearing.

Ardai's novel isn't meant to be a future classic -- it's just a fun, self-referential romp purely intended to offer a few hours' diversion along with its plethora of cross-merchandising (an 8-page gallery of all 50 covers is included in place of the usual club advertisement). The great thing is, fans will see these as bonuses, which just goes to show how attuned to his readers Ardai is. He has produced a novel that attempts many things and succeeds at more of them than should have been possible. Fifty-to-One is a book that is not only a solid example of the comic crime novel, but also goes to show what a really good writer can come up with when he truly challenges himself.

Too cute and gimicky. Characters are more parodies than real people. I am a fan of the Hard Case series but not enough of a fan to give this weak entry a pass.

Hard Case Crime publisher and sometime writer, Charles Ardai took it upon himself to make the fiftieth entry in the HCC series something special. Fifty-to-One is a purposely self referential novelty novel designed to parody hardboiled crime writing, a genre Ardai obviously has great affection for. Significantly longer than the average Hard Case Crime entry because it was symbolically important to have 50 chapters, Fifty-to-0ne succeeds in accomplishing exactly what it was designed to do. It provides a good natured send up of mid 20th century pulp fiction while at the same time celebrating the well earned success of the Hard Case Crime brand.
Fifty-to-One is a fitting acknowledgement of an important publishing milestone and an equally fitting gift from Charles Ardai to both himself and the growing legions of HCC fans.

Charles Ardai's Fifty-To-One is a really great exercise in writing. How the author was able to connect all of the previous fifty Hard Case Crime novels' titles into a coherent story is still beyond me, even as a writer myself.

If you've read and enjoyed any Hard Case Crime books as of yet, you'll probably enjoy Fifty-to-One, even though it's considerably lighter in tone than most of the other Hard Case books I've read.

But, I want to bring something to Amazon and Hard Case's attention, and it's not a huge deal, but it's something that really bothered me quite a few times throughout the book. The formatting in this book is pretty awful, almost like it was converted from a PDF instead of typeset specifically for the Kindle. Many lines have weird carriage returns where a word will inch up into the previous line, other words have very large spacing around them. In a couple of places, toward the end, entire words were cut off from the ends of lines, leaving me a bit confused. The text itself also isn't as sharp as the other Kindle books I've read. I'm not exactly sure what caused this, but it's maybe something Amazon and Hard Case should look into before releasing more books on the Kindle (which they should keep doing...as much as I love the covers, I also love the ability to carry around dozens of these pulp classics with me at all times).

All in all, it's a great book with tons of nods to previous (and future) Hard Case Crime books as well as Hard Case Authors (watch for cameos by Mickey Spillane, Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake). I recommend it for anyone who wants to go on a good pulpy ride.

For those fans of Hard Case Crime, the series of pulpy mysteries, either from the 1950s or simulating that period, Fifty-to-One is a thank you note by the publisher Charles Ardai, in the form of the series' fiftieth novel. Using the titles of all fifty Hard Case Crime books as chapter headings, Ardai has constructed a comic thriller filled with inside jokes.

The plot follows Tricia Heverstadt, a naïve (but beautiful, of course) 18 year old from South Dakota who has just arrived in 1958 New York City, hoping to live with her sister Coral and get a decent job. Coral, however, is unwilling to take Tricia in, and within moments, Tricia is also conned out of her small amount of money. Fortunately, she is able to get a semi-legitimate modeling job and a place to live; furthermore, she has found the man who scammed her: Charley Borden, who's actually a small-time publisher of cheap crime novels. The name of the publishing house: Hard Case Crimes.

Tricia is commissioned by Borden to write a true crime story, but lacking sources, she makes one up: the anonymously written memoir of a minor hood who worked for mobster Sal Nicolazzo and ripped him off for $3,000,000. The book is a hit, but unfortunately, it's truer than expected. Sal has actually been ripped off, and for the exact amount (and using the exact method) that Tricia described. Now she and Charley are both in trouble with Nicolazzo and the law, neither of whom are likely to believe Tricia's version of the events. This leads to blackmail, murder and other assorted crimes.

I think most readers will be able to figure out the actual thieves long before they're actually revealed, but the fun is less with the destination than the journey. Constructing a novel with just fifty chapter headings as a starting point can be rough, but Ardai does the job well. Although I think anyone could enjoy the book, this is - as stated before - a thank you note to Hard Case Crime's readers, who not only get a nice caper novel, but also a special insert with the covers of all fifty books (and the covers are a treat; in an era when most book covers are pretty boring, Hard Case Crime brings back the better covers of yesteryear). It's not a perfect book, but it's still a very good one.

Fifty-to-One by Hard Case Crime editor, Charles Ardai is stuning!

Hard Case Crime has been one of my favorite series since it first arrived with Grifters Game. Publishing companies traditionally pay homage to a series with 'special' numbers like 50, 100, and so on. So, how, in a novel series, do you do honor to the series?

I think Mr Ardai, with his clever use of each book title in the chapters, and the plot device of placing the main character as a writer trying to make it in New York, hit on the perfect vehicle.

I loved the interplay between the cameo characters (Spillane et al) and Tricia Heverstadt, the writrix. Packed with snappy dialogue, and a plot that educates readers on the short (but illustrious) history of Hard Case Crime, the book is more Twain than Shakespeare, more O'Henry than Shelley, and more Thin Man, than Gone With the Wind. As good as the book is, the ending brings back memories of the end of Casablanca as Bogey walks away...

BONUS: The photo spread of the 50 covers and checklist is so very cool!

Tim Lasiuta

The premise suggests a gimmick. Charles Ardai, renowned crime novelist and publisher of the Hard Case Crime series, wants to celebrate the fiftieth publication in the series. He toys with the idea of a collection of short stories by the series' authors but instead decides to write a novel with fifty chapters, each using the title of one of the fifty novels (in sequence) in the series.

This results in certain challenges, particularly with regard to plot and tone. The bottom line, however, is that the chapter titles are cute and fun, but do not really shape the book. The book stands on its own merits and it's a veritable gem.

Paricia Heverstadt, aka Trixie, aka Tricia, has come to New York from South Dakota, following her sister Coral. Coral has found work as a dancer and so does Tricia. Discovering that she works for a Gotham criminal she also encounters Charles Borden, erstwhile publisher of `Hard Case Crime' books as well as some cash cow pornography. He's looking for material and Tricia supplies a heist novel, the mark being her crime-family boss. Then, lo and behold, it happens that the heist has actually been pulled off and Tricia's being threatened by `Uncle Nick', the crime boss as well as a host of subsidiary characters she encounters in her attempts to elude Nick, find the stolen swag, free her captured sister and her potential partner, Charles Borden and . . . well, you get the point.

This is a breakneck romp, a tour of Gotham with lots of blood and lots of smiles. One of the high points occurs at Aqueduct, where Tricia--good girl of the northern plains that she is--escapes the bad guys on a race horse which she promptly rides through the not so mean streets of Queens.

Maintaining the balance between suspense, violence and lighthearted humor is the real challenge here, not the chapter titles, and Ardai succeeds beautifully. One of the jacket blurbs suggests that the best writer in Ardai's (aka Richard Aleas) stable is Ardai himself. That may just be true, but he's also enough of a pro here to feature a cameo appearance by Block and Westlake, two of his star authors. Their appearance comes at just the right moment and in just the right, unanticipated fashion.

Fifty-To-One is longer than the vast majority of Hard Case Crime novels and every page is a delight. This is a don't miss. And Charles--thanks for the series; how about a sequel for Tricia?

When I bought Fifty to One, which I've looked forward to reading since I'd heard Ardai mention it during his Terry Gross interview, I expected a bit of a farse. After all, it was simply a puzzle: write a novel using fifty book titles as chapter titles. Book titles in the Hard Case genre tend to be over-the-top, attention grabbers to inspire the purchase of a quick read. To weave them together into anything remotely coherent was surely going to be a challenge. Writing a story which stood on its own was completely out of the question.

Yet to my amazement, Ardai pulled it off. After his first two masterpieces in the series, each written as the anagram Richard Alias, I really shouldn't have been so surprised. Charles is truly an excellent writer.

On its own, independent of the game, I wouldn't give this book five stars. Four, maybe. But that's irrelevant. The game's the point, and knowing the game is necessary to get the most delight out of each new chapter. That the story itself is so enjoyable despite the artificial ground rules just adds to the brilliance.

Fifty to One comes with an insert of the covers of each of the preceding Hard Case Crime novels. It's the cover art which really sets this series apart, so it's worth the time to review these.

Ardai's book stands up competently with mid-level Hard Case releases. Would have been better if it did not have to stick to the 51 chapter format; drags on in order to achieve this. Reccomended for loyal Hard Case readers but not one of their better releases.