Peddler

Tony Romero is a punk. But as punks go he's an exceedingly ambitious one. In fact he's not all that different from the ill-fated Rocco of "Little Caesar" fame. Except this is 1950s San Francisco and Tony has his sights set on rising to the top of the city's highly lucrative prostitution racket. Hence the title "The Peddler" as in flesh peddler. This very intriguing example of pulp fiction is notable for its exceptionally smooth narrative flow. Written in the third person using an almost conversational style of narration, "The Peddler" is a fast and compelling page turner of a novel featuring a title character who's both mesmerizing and full of contradictions. As Tony ruthlessly orchestrates his meteoric ascent and then undergoes the inevitable fall from grace, the reader is deftly and quite willingly drawn in to the sordid netherworld of prostitutes, procurers, gangsters and corrupt cops. Fans of pulp fiction owe a vote of thanks to Hard Case Crime for reprinting this thoroughly entertaining paperback. Highly recommended.

This novel never stops moving, and there can't be many readers out there who managed to put it down for long. Additionally, it is quite a picture of life in Baghdad by the Bay circa 1950. This is not the North Beach, beatniks, black beret 1950's. This is the rough and tough independent town when the SFPD met LA mobsters at the airport and told 'em to go home. Apparently the little place was wild and wide open back then. Old timers - or those who just wish they were there - will remember many of the restaurants, hotels, and other local sites found in this book. But don't buy this one just because it provides such a window on that long-lost time. This story stands on its own - it's a heck of a tale.

Growing up in the 50s and 60s I practically inhaled the books of Richard S. Prather, Donald Hamilton, Erle Stanley Gardner, Stephen Marlowe, Leslie Charteris, Brett Halliday, Ed McBain and others of that ilk, whose names escape me now. I have to admit, however, that re-reading these `giants of the past' in the here-and-now is ever so much more fun! I understand them now! There were so many subtle undercurrents that went right over my head in my younger years. This was rather forcibly brought home to me by about page 25 or so of this new edition, recently published by Hard Case Crime. It's also neat to see the original cover artists on many of these new books. In fact, I saw the cover of The Peddler by Robert McGinnis from across the room and recognized it immediately as a `Shell Scott' book, and made a bee-line for it. Of course, it wasn't really a Shell Scott book, but it WAS by his creator. Oh, happy day! I was not disappointed by this book, either. It not only tells a story, with wonderful writing, but has a moral to it, as well. The bad guys always got their come-uppance--which is just as it should be. The Peddler was originally published in 1952--a simpler time in many ways. Some of the surroundings may have changed in the 50+ years since then, but people haven't. They're still good and bad, greedy and giving, open and closed. Tony Romero is a youngish punk who wants to be a bigger punk. He'll ruthlessly climb over anyone who gets in his path on his way to achieving his goals. Makes no difference if it's his long-time girl friend Maria or one of the guys who gave him a boost up the ladder in the first place. Self-confidence can be a good thing, as long as you don't really believe everything your mind creates. Spend a few dollars and a few hours with one of these `classics'. You won't regret it.

Being the somewhat precocious child that I was, I went straight from the Hardy Boys to Shell Scott --- or, as I'm fond of saying, from Bayport to Babes. Shell Scott, an ex-Marine turned private eye, was the creation of Richard S. Prather. The paperbacks were readily identifiable by their covers, which always featured Scott's crew-cut countenance set in a confident leer, and a woman dressed in a come-hither look and little else. The series, some four to five decades later, rereads uniformly well; I can honestly say that one of the saddest days of my life occurred when I realized that, for one reason or another, there wasn't going to be a new Shell Scott novel. So one of the happiest days of my life occurred recently when THE PEDDLER hit the doorstep. A stand-alone work first published in 1952 and long out of print, it is a classic noir read from first page to last. Tony Romero, the book's protagonist, is an unabashed bad guy, one whose moral compass isn't damaged or askew; he simply doesn't have one, at least when we meet him as a 19-year-old in San Francisco, looking to break into crime in a big way. Romero parlays some old relationships to be a peddler, but he's not selling vegetables or tin pots. Instead, he becomes a pimp and is looking to work his way up as fast as he can. He will stop at nothing, and crawl or step over anyone, to get to where he wants to go. It is obvious, not only from what he wants but what he is willing to do to get it, that Romero is damaged goods. And it is never more apparent how truly broken he is than when he is offered one last chance at salvation and turns it down, eschewing what he needs and wants most for what he desires right now. Prather is nothing less than masterful here, creating a penultimate moment when Romero turns away from life and love, heading instead for almost certain disaster. While the plot is riveting, the novel is character-driven. Prather's protagonists --- uniformly strong, hard males --- use people as a means to an end. While women in his books were objectified, they also wielded a subtle and ultimate power that influenced the denouement of the protagonist --- this at a time decades removed from the ascendancy of the feminist movement into popular culture. THE PEDDLER is a classic, unforgettable tale from an author incapable of bad writing whose influence over the genre in which he worked continues to this day, even as he remains relatively unknown and wretchedly under-appreciated. When actively writing, Prather was almost always ahead of his time and in many ways still is today. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

This beautifully written book is a parable for modern times, a "lesson" the Greatest Generation didn't need in 1952 but is now a very relevant moral story about the price of success at any price. It has power, prestige, wealth, ambition, quick intelligence, loyalty and betrayal, and even a merger or potential hostile takeover. It has all the systems, values and hazards of unrestricted free enterprise system that never get to the business pages unless accompanied by a picture of a handcuffed miscreant in a highly visible perp walk. It shows what happens when 'Greed is enough' becomes the prime ethic. Prather is superb. In this book, he tells the story of a kid who's quick rise to success is based on the complete and cynical exploitation of people without a shred of conscience or compassion. In crime, business or politics, this is what happens when the only ethic is increasing profits or votes-at-any-price. There are probably more than a few people who can sympathize, "Yeah, that's what they told me before I came to work here." Read it and you'll be reminded of the ethics of Enron, and perhaps remember Playboy's pictorial "the women of Enron". As in all good parables, it uses a different setting to remind readers of a moral; in this case, a good hard-case crime story is the theme. The writing is superb without being lurid, fast-paced without being shallow, literate without being pretentious. Prather is a worthy member of the Greatest Generation, those people who went through 10 years of the Great Depression and five years of World War II without losing faith in themselves or their country. Perhaps the 1930 - 1952 era taught him what can happen when human values become a distant last in the drive for success. Prather reminds us "it can happen here" and when it does it's a crime. It's a great read as a hard-boiled crime story, and it's a profound read as a moral lesson that is completely relevant in today's world. Either way, you won't go wrong.