The Box/Journey Into Terror

I finished reading Peter Rabe's THE BOX, the Stark House edition packaged with JOURNEY INTO TERROR. The nutshell plot concerns Quinn, a sharpie New York City lawyer, shipped out by the Mob in a wooden crate round-trip to teach Quinn a lession. Quinn is busted out of the crate in the North African town of Okar, still alive but a bit unglued. After surveying the town's operations, he tries to muscle in on the local smuggling business. One of the striking qualities about Rabe is his original "voice", and I'd vote "thumbs up" on it. The harsh, claustrophobic setting helps to develp the "box" metaphor in the story. Helpful essays by Ed Gorman, Bill Crider, Donald Westlake, and George Tuttle offer perspective on the author and his work, including the Gold Medal canon. Like Charles Williams and John D. MacDonald, Rabe's fiction tells a good story but in a fresh, accessible way. JOURNEY INTO TERROR (1957) is book 11 of the 18 Rabe wrote from 1955 through 1960 for Gold Medal. This classic noir pivots on John Bunting's obsession over avenging the death of his fiancée Ann Jackson killed by a stray bullet during a robbery. Bunting, a young electrical engineer, grows enraged, calculating, and relentless. He finds out that Saltenberg, a local racketeer, ordered the robbery, and Tarpin led the gang. After John meets Linda, the widow of Saltenberg's late accountant, they learn Tarpin is in Manitoba, Florida, (near Miami) operating a pinball machine racket. The narrative then shifts with their "journey" (in Linda's car) to confront Tarpin in Florida. Rabe innovatively contrasts the settings of wintry New York (Bunting's plan) with sultry Florida (Bunting's execution). Bunning gets a job assembling pinball machines for Tarpin and plots his payback. The edgy romance Bunting has with Linda intensifies his ambivalence and also prevents JOURNEY from slipping into a formulaic revenge noir. I like how the characters' dialogue and mannerisms are sharp and true whether in a cathouse, lunch counter, or Florida bar. Rabe, a Ph.D. in psychology, builds plenty of introspection in the scenes, especially the troubled Bunting and Linda trying to figure each other out.