Forgotten Books: WAR OF THE DONS by Peter Rabe (1972)

Some years back I read a fine Stark House duo by this guy, Kill the Boss Good-by and Mission for Vengeance, and talked about one of them HERE. I was an instant Peter Rabe fan. Then came the Manny DeWitt trilogy, Girl in a Big Brass Bed, The Spy Who was Three Feet Tall and Code Name: Gadget, all of which failed to float my boat. And I was no longer so sure. 

Now comes War of the Dons, back from the dead in another Stark House volume, and I'm a Rabe fan again. This one originally appeared in 1972, sixteen years after Kill the Boss Good-by and five to seven years after the DeWitt stuff, and shows a mature, truly accomplished writer at the top of his form. Unfortunately, as Rick Ollerman's Intro tells us, this book and it's Stark House mate Black Mafia were the last two published under Rabe's own name, and in his own style. Now I'm bummed again. 

War of the Dons was published (and apparently written) in the wake of the Godfather frenzy. Whether Rabe was at influence by Puzo is doubtful, but the connection probably helped sell a few more copies, which is a good thing. 

There are two real Dons here, one current and one retired, along with a sort of mini-Don and three mini-Don wannabes. The current Don is a pragmagtic guy, willing to work with just about anyone who can keep his money machine operating smoothly. The retired Don cherishes the old traditions, misses the action, and wants back in. The min-Don gets lazy, ceding too much authority to mini-Don wannabes, and pays the price, setting up an intricate battle for control of his regime. 

Though this is an ensemble cast, the characters we spend the most time with are the wannabes, the Guarda brothers Marco, Nuncio and Pepe. Marco, the most level-headed, is the natural leader, while Nuncio is a semi-competent weasel and Pepe is a brutal, ignorant dope. As the story plays out, we find them working sometimes together, sometimes at cross-purposes and sometimes in direct oppostion as they strive to hold on to their crumbling regime. 

The plot is intricate, the characters are complex, the dialogue is tough and the prose is everything you could ask for. There are a lot of good lines, but one of my favorites tells of a Los Angeles neighborhood has "all the charm of greasy dishes." 

How many of the tough guys in this book will come out alive? Not many. But you'll have to read it yourself to sort the living from the dead. 

Forgotten Books: CODE NAME GADGET by Peter Rabe (1967)

This third and final book in the Manny DeWitt series looks more like a spy novel than the first two. This was 1967, spies were big, and I have to think Gold Medal was wishing this was a spy book and wanted would-be buyers to think so. And yeah, there are some spooks in it, sniffing around after the "gadget" of the title, but Our Man Manny is definitely not a spy. He doesn't think like one, doesn't act like one, and doesn't narrate his adventures like one. 

DeWitt thinks, acts and narrates like no one I've encountered before. He's a lawyer who is amused with life, but perpetually annoyed with the people and problems it throws at him. That amusement manifests itself in a lot of wry, clever and nicely crafted narration. As for the people who annoy him most, the chauffeur/smart ass dwarf in The Spy Who Was Three Feet Tall and the pilot/chauffeur/lecher in this novel, they annoyed me too. And his problems? They are in due in large part to his boss (another annoying character), who withholds vital information when sending him on assignments, for no reason other than eccentricity. DeWitt's sidekick in this one reminds me of the perpetually drunk guys who both assist and annoy Rex McBride and other Cleve F. Adams heroes. The difference is that Adams was able to rein them in, so that they annoyed only the hero. 

On the plus side, DeWitt's adventures take him to many interesting locales (in this case Honduras, Ireland, London, New York, Chicago and Tennessee), and Rabe's prose is consistently fine. If you're in the right frame of mind for DeWitt's attitude and humor, and have the patience to let the story unfold, you might find this to be a great read.  

The Stark House Press Manny DeWitt Omnibus is now officially available. I talked about Girl in a Big Brass Bed HERE, and The Spy Who Was 3 Feet Tall HERE. 

Forgotten Books: THE SPY WHO WAS 3 FEET TALL by Peter Rabe

There's a good novelette in here somewhere. Trouble is, it's smothered in a lot of extra words meant to market it as a novel. That's what happened back in 1966, when it was published by Gold Medal, and it will be happening again this month in a Manny deWitt Omnibus from Stark House Press. 

When I read the first deWitt novel, Girl in a Big Brass Bed (discussed HERE), it took me a long time to settle in and appreciate Rabe's slow pace and odd sense of humor. This time I was ready for it, and the first thirty pages went pretty well. 

DeWitt is sent by his quirky international multi-industrialist boss, Hans Lobbe, to handle legal details for the building of a road in the fresh new African nation of Motana. But he soon learns there are people who don't want him to get there, let alone get that road built. And that's where, for me, the story bogged down in a lot of nicely written but pointless captures and escapes.

Bored, I had to start another book, Steward Edward White's The Long Rifle, which begins the saga of Andy Burnett (you'll hear more about that anon), and slog through this one a few pages at a time until it caught my interest again. 

That happened about forty pages from the end, when deWitt finally gets an inkling of what's going on, and who the real players are in the story. 

DeWitt stumbling around in the dark seems to be the point of this series. His boss, Lobbe, won't tell him why he's there, or who his enemies might be, or what the implications of his success or failure are. All this, I guess, is meant to be the mystery, as deWitt (and the hapless reader) struggle to figure it out. Near the end, things finally started popping, and came to a reasonably satisfying finish. But it was a rocky trip.

I was expecting good things, being there was a Spy in the title. But he was a letdown. Yeah, we meet an annoying little 3-foot Motanian, but he's not really a spy. He's just there for the occasional not-quite-funny joke, and to participate in some of the pointless captures and escapes. The book would have been better without him.  

The novelette I referred to reminded me of one of the wartime stories Richard Sale wrote for The Saturday Evening Post. And Rabe's cockeyed portrayal of corrupt Motana reminded me of Norbert Davis's Mexico in The Mouse in the Mountain. But Sale was more compelling, and Davis much funnier.

I have it on reliable authority that the third and last Manny deWitt novel, Code Name Gadget, goes easy on the attempted humor and gets down to business. I'm hoping that's so.

Forgotten Books: GIRL IN A BIG BRASS BED by Peter Rabe (1956)

Confession time. I didn’t really read the 1965 Gold Medal edition shown here. I read the first novel in the review copy of the Manny deWitt Omnibus (containing Girl in a Big Brass Bed, The Spy Who was 3 Feet Tall, and Code Name Gadget), due to be published next month by Stark House Press (and shown way down below).

I didn’t know what to think at first. The Peter Rabe books I’d read before were crime novels. They were tough and fast moving. Girl in the Big Brass Bed is about a lawyer involved into the world of international big business. It tries to be funny, and the humor slows the pace. So at first, I wasn’t liking it much.

But it grew on me. The trick, as Rick Ollerman reveals in the Introduction, is to slow down and take it as it comes. Once I curbed my impatience, I began to enjoy the story, get into Rabe’s style, and appreciate some of the humor. So it ended up a very enjoyable read, and I’m looking forward to the next in the series.

The plot involves a Vermeer painting called “Apple Girl,” stolen during the war by Hermann Goering. (This is not the same Vermeer you’ll find online as “Apple Girl with a Pearl Earring,” and is probably fictional.) Manny deWitt’s eccentric and somewhat crazy boss sends him to Munich to bring it back, under extremely secretive and unusual circumstances. Once there, deWitt starts behaving more like a secret agent than a lawyer, which is surely a good thing, and the story moves on to Rotterdam and Amsterdam.

Several mysterious individuals in and out of the art world, and representing (or acting in spite) of various governmental agencies, are after the painting, which may or may not be genuine. This results in murder, mayhem and assorted other crimes, with a little time on the side for romance.

DeWitt develops into an intriguing character, often at odds with his boss, but plowing ahead and getting to the truth anyway. And the truth turns out to be pretty cool.

The title, I’m guessing, was wholly the invention of the publisher, and leaves me wondering what Rabe's title was. There’s a brass bed mentioned, and a girl who sleeps in it, but if there was any sex I don’t remember it (and I finished it yesterday), and certainly no nudity or provocative behavior. It was more on the chaste side. It’s sort of a shock that Gold Medal published it anyway.

My takes on deWitt’s follow-up adventures will be coming soon.

Forgotten Books: KILL THE BOSS GOOD-BY by Peter Rabe

When I started reading hardboiled fiction back in the eighties, folks were raving about Peter Rabe - so I picked up a few paperbacks. Still got 'em, too, but I never got around to reading the guy until last week. My reaction? Jeez, what took me so long?

Kill the Boss Good-by, originally published by Gold Medal in 1956, grabbed me right from the start and never let go. The action centers around the not-so-old crime boss of the fictional Southwestern city of San Pietro. The boss, Tom Fell, runs the local gambling racket, as well as the horseracing track. He's the biggest fish in the San Pietro pond, but holds his position only at the pleasure of the upper tier mob bosses in Los Angeles.

Trouble is, Fell seems to be losing his grip - not only on his operation, but on reality. As the story starts, he's been out of sight for a month, having checked himself into a sanitarium. Only his wife and his most trusted flunky know where he is, and his little gambling empire is coming apart at the seams. Things are so bad that his brother-in-law the mayor is not getting his regular payoff, and the cops have grown so bold as to start raiding his gambling joints. Meantime, the L.A. guys are testing a new number two, to see if he has the stuff to take over Fell's territory.

After this setup, we meet Fell himself, and he's not what you'd expect. He's actually a likable guy, who's faithful to his wife and generous to his employees. He even shows great restraint in dealing with the guy who's angling to take over his job. He's sort of a nicer version of Tony Soprano. But though he appears to be functioning fine, he's feeling too fine, making him overconfident, ultra-ambitious and impatient with anyone who can't keep pace with him. And that means everybody, including the only two people who actually care for him.

Peter Rabe paints a fascinating portrait of Fell and the world that's rapidly slipping away from him. After buzzing through this one, I'm anxious to read the story Stark House paired it with, the 1958 Gold Medal thriller Mission for Vengeance. And Stark House has published at least five other Rabe doubles, and once Rabe triple, so there's plenty more where these came from.

More Forgotten Books at pattinase.