THE RED SCARF (1958) by Gil Brewer

One of the many Florida-set paperback originals written by Gil Brewer in the 1950s, it has a plot that mostly recycles James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice but also adds some very effective gear changes. Roy Nichols has been to Chicago to ask his brother for a loan to save his motel, but is hitch-hiking his way back to Tampa with nothing. At a diner he catches a ride with warring couple Noel and Viv that soon turns deadly when the car crashes. You see, there’s this bag of money that everybody wants …

I submit this review for Bev’s Vintage Mystery Challenge Bingo and Friday’s Forgotten Books meme, hosted today by Todd Mason’at Sweet Freedom.

“It was raining and snowing at the same time; you know, just hard enough to make it real nasty.”

Roy is a classic pulp hero – an innocent fall guy, caught up in somebody else’s criminal scheme. It turns out that Viv (full name, Vivian Rise) has convinced her boyfriend (full name Noel Teece – the book is full of oddly named characters …) to abuse his position at work. He’s a courier for the mob, carrying cash for them. Only this time he didn’t reach his destination, and they know it. It turns out our two crooks are not too smart and after some heavy drinking while driving, Roy suddenly awakens down a gully with a broken finger, a shard of glass in his leg and only bits of the car (this is probably one of the niftiests scenes in the book, nicely jolting the reader by suddenly pushing the narrative much further forward). He then finds the suitcase with a broken clasp. It is full to the brim with money. Viv grabs it and ties it shut with her ‘lucky’ red scarf. Noel is in the rest of the wreckage, apparently dead. She convinces Roy to help her get out of the country in exchange for some of the cash, which he desperately needs. He buys a new car (stupidly using his own name) and then has an almighty shock when he sees Noel in town, looking for them. Roy heads back home on his own, but is soon tracked down by Viv, Noel and a mob enforcer named Wirt Radan (where did Brewer get these names from?) and they are all after the cash. Then one of the three is killed, then another. The police arrive and quickly realise Roy is not being very forthcoming, as does Bess. Well, he isn’t, because all he cares about now is saving the motel by keeping the cash he has hidden away …

“That money. I had to keep it. Somehow. It beat like a very small drum at the back of my head. A small and very distant drum …”

James Reasoner reviewed The Red Scarf over at his blog, Rough Edges and thinks it may be the apex of Brewer’s work, as does the great Bill Pronzini, who wrote a terrific overview of the author’s career for MysteryFile.com. However, I can’t agree with them. To me the book is often trite and repetitive and the central situation seems to have taken the plot of Cain’s Postman and simply rejigged it. The narrator starts by getting off a truck and heading into a diner, where he meets a femme fatale. He gets involved in a scam involving a car crash and then another crook arrives to put the squeeze on, and then the cops get involved. There are some nice twists, like the jump forward to after the car crash (it’s a real surprise and feels like a chapter is missing) and the unexpected re-appearance of Noel. But this all belongs to the first few chapters. Once we get to Florida, most of the story is set in the motel and soon becomes confining and very, very repetitive with simple variations on a basic situation. Bess wonders what her husband is up (is he being unfaithful?) to and keeps interrupting him when he sees Viv, while the latter is terrified and just makes matters worse for him by begging not to be left alone. And all the while, cops and crooks all put pressure on Roy. Its meant to be nightmarish and is thus exaggerated accordingly, but never convinced me. Ultimately the characters are just too thin – Roy is a fool under pressure, Bess is the square homemaker (and a bit of a ball-breaker), Viv is a scared femme fatale, Noel a very weak mobster, the cop is ‘all-knowing’ thanks only to his internal radar (despite a total lack of evidence), while the nasty Radan is, well, nasty. Even by 1958, this particular tale had already been told time and time again …

This is the third of Brewer’s books I have posted about here at Fedora over the last 18 months and I really much preferred the savage nihilism of The Vengeful Virgin and the downright perverse melodrama of Nude on Thin Ice and would certainly recommend those before this one.

For more information on the Brewer, his tortured life, and his books, including a moving memoir from his widow, visit: www.gilbrewer.com. The Gil Brewer Appreciation Society on Facebook can be found here.

I submit this review for Bev’s 2015 Golden Age Vintage Mystery Challenge Bingo in the ‘colour in the title’ category:

***** (2 fedora tips out of 5)