A Touch of Death

Sure, the plotting of A Touch of Death by Charles Williams isn't 100% airtight. But that's easy to forgive in view of the wonderfully hardboiled dialogue and the compellingly captivating and suspense filled narrative. It wasn't too many years ago that Lee Scarborough was a college football player of some renown. But today he's a down on his luck salesman looking for a break. When he learns that there's $120,000 in embezzled bank funds ripe for the plucking, he decides to go after it. Little does he realize he is about to cross paths with Madelon Butler, an aristocratic beauty with ice water where her blood should be. Lee naively believes he can outsmart Madelon. Trouble is, he's playing checkers while Madelon is playing three dimensional chess. As the fast paced story unfolds, Lee's straits become more and more dire and he finds out the hard way that crime doesn't pay (at least not for him). Charles Williams was a great writer and A Touch of Death is one of his best efforts. Highly recommended.

From the instant Lee Scarborough spotted Diana James sunning herself sans bikini top, he should have known she meant trouble. The ex-football star was trying to sell his car to pay rent money. Diana James just happened to live in the same building as a prospective buyer. And she recognizes a useful pawn when she sees one: the healthy, athletic Scarborough has all the tools she needs to pull off a caper. Diana invites him up to her apartment, tests her mark, and then lays out what seems like a simple plan. A banker had embezzled $120K of currency and then hidden it in his estate home... just before turning up up dead. Diana knows the embezzler's wife and intends to take her on a drinking binge up the gulf coast while Scarborough enters the home and locates the dough. Scarborough and James agree to split the $120 grand after they pull off the caper. Soon Scarborough finds himself in the dark and cavernous home, scrounging around for the bankroll. One little problem: the widow, Madelon Butler, is in the home, drunk as a skunk. And, to complicate matters, someone else is also in the house... As the tale unfolds, you'll find yourself startled and impressed with the crafty Ms. Butler -- who plays all of the characters around her like fiddles. Charles Williams has created an elegant, captivating story of exceptional quality: built like a Swiss watch, the plot just keeps unwinding... along with Scarborough's life. This is a tremendous story and one that should be optioned into film, just like Williams' Hot Spot.

It's too bad the characters in crime novels don't read them, because then Lee Scarborough would know better than to get involved with the seductive Diana James on a get-rich-quick scheme involving an empty house and $120,000 of embezzled bank funds. Lucky for us he doesn't, though, because A Touch of Death is the best novel yet to come out of the Hard Case Crime archives. A Touch of Death is a reprint of a 1953 novel by Charles Williams, who also wrote the books that inspired the films The Hot Spot and Dead Calm. (Orson Welles had attempted to adapt the latter novel, but that film was never finished.) Ex-college football star Lee Scarborough is just looking to sell his car for some much needed cash when he runs across Diana James on a visit to a potential buyer. Something about her topless sunbathing makes him ignore what he came for, but the mention of an easy sixty grand sharply focuses his attention. It seems Diana knows where the money is and wants Lee to go look for it -- somewhere in the embezzler's house -- and split the proceeds. The widow, Madelon Butler, is expected to be away for a few days, so it should be a piece of cake. Soon, Lee finds himself rummaging through the house in question -- whereupon he runs smack dab into Madelon Butler! So he does the only thing he can think of to do, given the situation. What happens from then on is a complex melange of twists and turns that results one of the most shocking (yet completely organic) endings I've come across. This is one you'll be reading into the night. Williams writes the silkiest prose I've ever come across. I slipped into A Touch of Death's combination of sex, scissors, and shady simoleons -- with not one but two femmes fatales -- like a warm oil bath. I usually take notes while reading in order to jot down specific details to include in my reviews, but this novel had me gripped from its first sentence. It didn't let go until I was fully swept up in its nightmarish ending like something out of Poe. And all told with such ease and confidence that it feels like it could have been written in one sitting, though I know it takes a lot of effort to make it look like that.

When a half-naked woman offers Lee Scarborough half of $120,000 to break into a home and steal a bag of money, he can't refuse. However, he soon discovers the woman was hiding secrets and that he is not the only one after the money. Double- and triple-crosses ensue. However, while the plot of the missing money is very engaging, the real story here is Lee himself. He continues to overstep his boundaries and violate his conscience in oh-so-tiny steps, until the lure of the money causes him to lose his moral compass completely. A fascinating tale of greed and self-deceit.

If you were offered an opportunity to walk away with $120,000 free and clear, how far would you go to get it? The money has already been stolen from a bank. The thief who took it has already been murdered. All you need to do is search an empty house to find it and half of it is yours. When the offer is made to Lee Scarborough, he decides to take the whole Easter Basket and go all the way to the very verge of madness to get it. The only thing standing in his way is Madelon Butler. Madelon is the wife of the bank's vice president, the guy who stole the money in the first place. Before the age of identity theft and extortion of funds by wire transfer to offshore accounts, before the crime novel turned to psychopathic stalkers and serial killers with abused childhood's that made them who they are, there was the hard-boiled crime novel. The characters in these stories didn't need high tech gimmicks to help them, or social workers to explain away their actions. Greed, avarice, revenge and human emotions were enough to see them through the day. The men in these stories were tough, resourceful, and daring. Their heads were made of concrete. Sap one down and all it took to get him back on his feet were two or three stiff shots of straight bourbon. The women were clever, cunning, and resilient and usually upstaged the men. I'd give Charles Williams' A Touch of Death, five shining stars. It's a gem of the genre and a great entertaining read.