Great endings, and Fredric Brown

The Far Cry by Fredric Brown

published 1951

 

Reviewing a recent thriller in the i newspaper (The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins) I said ‘this is a superb, powerful read – one which grips like a savage dog’. In a Tweet I idly wondered if this was perhaps not the kind of quote the publishers wanted for the paperback version: but they tweeted back that they loved it.

This came to mind on reading Fredric Brown's The Far Cry, because I could use the same verdict. I bought it several years ago on the recommendation (yet again) of Christine Poulson – she said it had one of the best twists/endings she had ever read. So I bought a copy, but then got sidetracked into reading a different Fredric Brown book.

ANYWAY, here I am having finally read it, and my goodness it is a banger: intensely readable, very noir, and, yes, with big surprises in the final pages. It tells the melancholy story of George Weaver, a failed estate agent, who has gone away for some peace to the town of Taos in New Mexico. He gets involved in looking into a cold case: a young woman murdered eight years before. The crime happened near a lonely house, and the perpetrator, who was renting the house, got away before her body was found, and has never been caught. George moves into the shack-like house, does it up, and tries to find out more about the case: he has the chance to write it up as a true-crime story. He drinks too much, has no money, and is soon joined by his wife, whom he is close to hating. The steps of his investigation are fascinating and very well-done.

The case is known as a Lonely Hearts murder: the young woman corresponded with a man via a magazine advert, and then moved to the town in order to marry him. But nobody knows where she came from, no-one seems to have missed her. She travelled under the name Jenny Ames, but perhaps that wasn’t real? Meanwhile the man, Charles Nelson, was an unsuccessful artist, who has left traces behind, including a couple of his paintings – but who also cannot be found.

George bumbles around, questioning people, getting drunk, being driven mad by his wife, and – as is the nature of a certain kind of book – becoming obsessed with poor Jenny, an innocent girl who arrived thinking she was going to be married and live happily ever after. In a straightforward way we are told that most people could tell that Nelson was homosexual. So why was he luring this young woman to his house, and what became of him later?

George successfully starts cracking the case, and travels out of town to pursue leads. He is still drinking, and ends up in police custody. But he is released, comes back to the house, contemplates his miserable life. And then the local Sheriff turns up, and is going to cause consternation in the minds of protagonist and reader.

There are two huge surprises in the final pages (I slightly resist the word twist here)  - one of which truly creeped me out, and one of which was less breath-taking. Surprising, yes, and giving a shocking, yet somehow inescapable, noir-ish end to the book, it seemed the proper gloomy conclusion – but I don’t think a reader could have guessed it, it kind of came out of nowhere?

The other was equally unguessable, but satisfyingly random, in a horrible kind of way – too clever for words.

What a book. By the time I was two-thirds through, it would have taken a steam train to stop me reading. I haven’t even mentioned that the writing is wonderful, and the descriptions of the landscape (Brown evidently lived there at one time) are stunning without being intrusive.

Fredric Brown wrote one of the most terrifying short stories I have ever read –  featured in a list on the blog here.

A few years ago I did a post on the best endings of crime books – it’s here – and I’m surprised now that in the many comments no-one seems to have mentioned this one. It may be time for another such post. Suggestions please.

A while back I also did a whole series of posts on books about sanatoriums and TB – but never once came across this usage: ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a lunger. TB.’ (thinking of it as lung-er helps parse this).

The plots are very different but this book did remind me of Portrait in Smoke by Bill S Ballinger, another compelling noir book where a man becomes obsessed by the woman as he discovers more about her. And of course Laura, by Vera Caspary, (which I’m surprised to find I’ve never blogged on) also features an obsession with a woman, fuelled by her portrait.

The book is not for the faint of heart, it can be quite grim and unfiltered, so I was amused by a sudden moment of euphemism to express astonishment:

‘Callahan announced solemnly that he would be treated in a unique and unpublishable manner.’

Woman in green, whom a person might be obsessed by, Toni Frissell, Florida 1944, from Library of Congress.

Picture of a New Mexico man, Library of Congress.

Picture of Taos taken by Ansel Adams for the US National Park Service.