The latest Gold Medal reprint from Black Gat Books opens with a bang. In this case, a bazooka wielded by Monk Anzeiger, a dead-stop can opener against an armored truck hauling dough destined for a branch bank in Boone. An easy-money assault devised by the bossman, Gramma, who’d get half the take for his impeccable scheme. Only things don’t pan out as per the blueprint. The half-a-million payload tip fell way short of its promises, and Monk and his crony Pinkie have to settle for a measly cut of a hundred grand. A high price for what was now a multiple murder scene. The two crooks split with Monk headed for a rendezvous with Alma, his blonde bombshell, who’s brought a change of clothes and a blue Plymouth.
While the couple drives away, a radio newsflash reports the fourth guard didn’t die at the scene. He survived long enough to get to the hospital where he told the cops he’d heard the name Monk yelled out during the robbery. The cops quickly identify a known gangster named Monk Anzeiger, often seen lately with a blonde woman driving a blue Plymouth. Now too hot to be seen in public, Monk bails to hoof it into the wilderness, instructing Alma to take the loot to Gramma in Atlanta. He promises she’ll be less likely stopped if she’s driving alone.
Nervous as hell, Alma decides to pick-up a young hitchhiker on her route, figuring she’s less likely to be stopped with a companion who in no way matches the description of Monk. She even gets the eighteen-year-old Bill Evans to claim she’s his sister when they run into a roadblock a few miles down the road. Luckily, the cop in charge remembers Bill from high school football and lets them pass without a care.
Ever the manipulator, Alma gets Bill to scope out the shabby grocery store where she’s to hand off the loot to Gramma. Bill enters the place behind a young blonde girl and looks around for Alma’s ploy, her grandmother. He’s about to leave when some guy in a blue suit whips out a pistol and threatens the blonde girl. Acting on pure adrenaline, Bill whacks the guy who is finished off with the blunt end of meat cleaver swung by the girl’s father, who also happens to be the butcher working the meat counter. Bill hightails it back to Alma who recognizes trouble even if she can’t fully understand what went wrong based on Bill’s recount of events.
Now she’s on the lam with a satchel of hot money and an innocent bystander; and isn’t quite sure what’s coming next or what happened to Monk. Over the course of the novel, Alma and Bill slowly get to know each other better, and a romance blooms. But trouble hangs continuously in the background, and is slowly revealed to Bill, either through his own deductions or in confidence as Alma slowly opens up to him.
Darwin Teilhet, who wrote as William H. Fielding, delivers a tense, defective romance driven by dread and pursuit from every glimpse into the light. A top-flight noir, with brilliant character depth and clever plotting.
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