Customer Reviews

The Gutter and the Grave (Hard Case Crime)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ever since he found his wife Toni with one of his operatives, all former private investigator Matt Cordell has wanted to do is crawl inside a bottle and stay there. He's been perfectly happy to wallow in his memories for the last five years, panhandling for change on the Bowery, and he doesn't want any trouble.

Enter trouble in the form of Johnny Bridges, a guy from Cordell's old neighborhood he hasn't seen in ten years. Johnny can't afford a real private detective -- and he doesn't want to get the police involved for personal reasons -- so he asks Matt for his help in figuring out whether his business partner, Dom Archese, is stealing from the till in their co-owned tailor shop.

Being that Cordell doesn't have a whole hell of a lot else filling his day, he says yes. This little piece of magnanimity (really just a way to get Johnny off his back) sweeps Matt into a full-fledged murder case where he encounters a shady cast of characters so full of lies that it is impossible to tell if anyone is ever telling the truth. (Not that it stops Cordell from climbing into the sack with as many of the potential femmes fatales as will let him.)

That's what you get for doing a guy a favor.

The Gutter and the Grave is a reprint of a novel originally published by Gold Medal under the title I'm Cannon -- For Hire and the byline of "Curt Cannon" (the name the Cordell's character was changed to). This edition is Ed McBain's preferred text, complete with edits made just prior to his death. It is therefore a fascinating combination of the enthusiasm of a young writer (it is a little heavy on the exposition) and the restraint exercised by a seasoned pro (the violence is tight and visceral and not drawn out unnecessarily).

The Gutter and the Grave is a prime example of the fiction called noir: it's dark and it's dirty, and Matt Cordell is one depressing son of a bitch of a hero. He's full of self-pity and the smallest things set him off on a flashback. McBain keeps his prose raw and fluid, his dialogue sizzling, and a happy ending never crosses his mind (though there is a fun Blackboard Jungle reference for those who can appreciate it). This is a novel about the other side of society: the side where every day is a struggle and every relationship is just one more opportunity to take advantage of. It's the kind of potent novel that, after you get over the grungy feeling it leaves behind, makes you feel happy that you're not one of the characters -- a perfect addition to the Hard Case Crime canon.

Originally published in 1958 as by Curt Cannon under the title I'M CANNON--FOR HIRE, THE GUTTER AND THE GRAVE is enjoyable but decidedly a flyweight in the Ed McBain bibliography. Matt Cordell has fallen on hard times: when he caught his blonde bombshell wife in the arms of another man he lost his P.I. license and embarked upon a decade-long drunk. When old friend Johnny Bridges turns up with a problem, Cordell reluctantly agrees to help him out.

Bridges owns a shop and money has come up missing from the cash register repeatedly over the past six months. It seems simple enough--so simple that Cordell is unprepared for a corpse, and before you can say "pulp fiction" we're up to our eyebrows in thug-like investigators, dangerous dames, and jazz musicians.

Even this early on his career McBain knows how to turn a memorable phrase and he keeps the pace going at a solid clip; the plot, however, is less effective, and it will be a very inexperienced reader who doesn't spot the killer within the first third of the novel. Even so, THE GUTTER AND THE GRAVE is enjoyably written, and fans of McBain and the genre in general will enjoy it.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

I had not read a real hard-boiled detective novel in years before I stumbled onto this book. This is the real deal in the old pulp tradition, but the absolute best pulp tradition. Originally written in 1958, I do not think that the vast majority of modern writers could come close to recreating the mindset or the backdrop.

This isn't an elegant, intricate sort of mystery- it is more in the spirit of Mickey Spillanes's classic toughguy yarns. There is a difference though. It is more like one of Spillane's heroes had finally gone too far and found out that he wasn't a superman afterall. That is the case with Matt Cordell- we meet him on the Bowery as a pan-handling drunk. He has lost his license, wis wife, his rep, and his self-respect. He is now resigned to life as a philosophical drunk living in flops and on park benches. It is a joy watching him prove to himself and the world that he can solve one more case like a true professional. It is quite believable too, since at one point or another it seems like every single one of the other characters are lying to him.

On a secondary level this book is also a time capsule of 50's Manhattan. Infact, the settings are as engrossing as the plot. If you are getting a few years on you, it is very easy to quickly identify with both Cordell and his world...

Hard Case Crime's offerings include both new works and long out of print gems in the crime story genre. "The Gutter and the Grave" is one of the latter, and it was a treat to discover this old P.I. thriller by Ed McBain... though it might be putting too fine a point on it to call this a "P.I." story, as the main character is basically a skid row bum who dusts himself off for one final investigation. So, between the offbeat protagonist and the wonderful snapshot of 1950's New York on display here, you can't go wrong with "The Gutter and the Grave". I should add that the plot isn't bad, either, and that I also enjoyed the generous helping of "sexy dames" of the femme fatale variety.

A very well written,early novel by Ed McBain,and somewhat of a surprise for those more used to his later work.It's the usual story of a down and out private detective,asked to help out an old friend,but made an excellent read by the sharp,first person dialog,and a nice mixture of sordid and not so sordid characters.Well worth the price,as are any of the Hard Case Crime titles I've had the pleasure to read so far.

Originally published under the late Ed McBain's pseudonym "Curt Cannon" as I'm Cannon--For Hire (1958), this reissue has been revised for modern readers without sacrificing its pulpster roots. In a noirish twist on the standard P.I. tale, Matt Cordell, 32 or 33, has quit the shamus trade due to his unfaithful wife. Nowadays beaten down, he's a self-admitted hobo panhandling for drinks in NYC's Bowery. A schoolmate from the old neighborhood, Johnny Bridges, now owning a tailor shop, looks up Cordell to solve a petty money theft. Of course, murder quickly enters the plot. Cordell, a suspect, rises above his personal and professional demons to finish up one last, glorious case. He clashes with an ambitious club singer (a "frail"), a rival P.I. (Cordell once broke his nose), a jaded homicide cop, and a cast of other sturdy characters. The mystery isn't the draw here. Reveling in McBain's laconic prose style and his mastery of depicting the 1950s NYC is. The jazz scenes McBain writes are special treats. If you like the big city detective pulps operating in a gritty summer, this title is worth a try.

Matt Cordell, from the get go at the begining of the story, admits that he's a drunk. A down and out detective who's reputation we find out through a friend who finds him sitting on a park bench. Right when I read that, I knew that this book was gonna be interesting. The begining scene was enough to make me want to read the entire book in one sitting.

Slowly, whil reading, we come to realize that Matt, even though he is rough around the edges, is actually a very cool, level-headed nice guy. It's all the people around him who are liars, cheaters, murderers and such.

The Narrator of the story, matt cordell, had me entwined in the story by the sheer brilliance of the descriptions and the peotry of each witty dialogue scene. Matt Cordell is no fool. After getting back into the business, by long time friend Johnny Bridges (even that name had me giggling with nostalgic admiration.), we come to find that Matt Cordell will have to sober up if he wants to crack this case.

Along the way, we are introduced to a colorful cast of characters, yet the beautifully written dialogue and the atmosphere of the descriptions just screams "Black and white Classic."

If you are a 1950's nut like me, you will fully appreciate this kind of dynamite story that is a total tribute to film noir. The ending was a bit surprising, not what I expected, but nevertheless this was well worth 6 bucks. Easily fittable into your back pocket to take anywhere, affordable and compact and brilliantly written. Even the cover art is Cineamatic Pulp Fiction Eye Candy.

This was the first Hard case crime series book that I have read, but it will certainly not be the last. I'm going to collect the whole set.

Pick this book up now! You won't regret it!

This is my second Hard Case Crime novel and I'm hooked. These short, easy to read novels are full violence, sex and gritty murder mysteries. This novel is from author Ed McBain, written in the 1950s when $10,000 in life insurance was worth killing over.

Matt Cordell is drinking himself into the grave over the adultery committed by his ex-wife Toni. A childhood friend asks Matt to lookover some thefts being committed at his Tailor shop. At the shop, they find the dead body of his partner. From their, Cordell, an ex PI tries to find the killer while negotiating the underside of NYC and staying one step ahead of the police.

This is a fun novel where the women are hot and sultry and none of the men can be trusted. I'll definitely check out more HCC books in the future.

Of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler once wrote this:

Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not with hand-wrought duelling pistols, curare, and tropical fish. He put these people down on paper as they are, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes.

I always took that quote to partially explain the move, by mystery and crime fiction, into the twentieth century. And, by extension, brought it to the American city. Sure, there is the famous foggy London of Sherlock Holmes and there is death there, and danger. But what Hammett, Chandler, and other did was pull a Christopher Columbus on crime fiction: they discovered a new world and then began to exploit it. Their fiction teemed with immigrants and thugs, falling over each other in row houses and tenement apartments of New York or Philly or Boston. It smelled. People drank. People died...and not always naturally. This is America, dammit. Get used to it, toughen up, or get out of here.

By the time Ed McBain began writing fiction, this tradition was decades old. McBain scanned the landscape, saw what was what, judged the speed of the moving traffic, and merged right in, going zero to sixty in seconds. And he never looked back, even when he changed lanes. Everyone else had to swerve to get out of the way of this fast-moving car whose driver knew exactly what he wanted and where he wanted to go.

Originally published in 1958 under the title I'm Cannon--For Hire, I read the republished version from Hard Case Crime entitled The Gutter and the Grave. A quick check at Thrilling Detective reveals that McBain liked the new title. The new title is quite apt. The first sentence of the story finds Matt Cordell basically in the gutter. The last sentence finds Cordell...well, I don't want to ruin the ending.

McBain's prose is, like Hammett's, tough, ornery, and punchy. I use punchy because there are a few fights in the books, both in flashback and in the book's present day. And the beating Cordell takes is brutal. It's brutal by today's standards. I can't imagine the reading public's reaction back in '58.

I listened to the audiobook version. The good folks at BBC Audiobook America provided this one and a great narrator: Richard Ferrone. His voice is gravelly, as if he himself just got off the booze long enough to read this book. It's a wonderful presentation. He also read the posthumously-published (by HCC, natch) novel by Mickey Spillane, Dead Street. I could think of nothing better than to have Ferrone read any old-school PI/noir book in the library. I'd check out every one.
This is the first McBain book I have read. I have his first 87th Precinct, Cop Hater, on my list. This will not be the last. My next McBain step will be to find the collection Learning to Kill, McBain's collection of short fiction that, according to him, helped him become "Ed McBain." I hope there is another Matt Cordell story in there. If not, I'll have to play Book PI and track them down. I want to know more about Matt Cordell. And you should, too.

Just don't blame me if it starts an addiction. I warned you.
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What a great book. This is my first Ed McBain's book and I'm already looking forward the next one. His style remembers me of Lawrence Block and Matt Cordell is a good pair to Block's Matt Scuder. The dialogs are great and the plot is simple and very well designed.
This book and the Lawrence Block's The Grifter's Game are the best on the Hard Case Crime series.
Don't loose it. you won't regret.