Fifty To One by Charles Ardai
To celebrate the publication of Hard Case Crime's fiftieth book, Ardai, the erstwhile founder of Hard Case Crime and author in his own right, decided to write a pulp novel that paid homage to all of the previous forty-nine books Hard Case Crime had already published. He also decided to pay homage to the some of the masters of pulp fiction by including them in some manner in his book. The result is a book that is part tongue-planted-firmly-in-cheek parody and part terrific pulp novel. It is hard enough to do one of these and no one knows how hard to do both of these things at once. Hats off to Ardai for successfully pulling this clever feat off and writing a truly thrilling tale that was extremely hard to put down until one reached the end.
This is the third Ardai book that I have read in the last two weeks, the previous two having been published under his pen name Richard Aleas. I wholeheartedly recommend all three of these books to the pulp reader (Little Girl Lost, Songs of Innocence, and Fifty To One). Besides terrific covers and terrific writing, what do these three have in common? Ardai focuses all of these stories on a young, innocent small-town hick as his protagonist. This young innocent hick comes to big bad New York City and encounters strippers and mobsters and, with the entire city seemingly against this protagonist, solves a deepening mystery.
This book (Fifty To One) opens with Patricia Heverstadt arriving from South Dakota with two suitcases and a typewriter out to follow her older sister's footsteps in New York City. Of course, her sister tells her to go home and, within moments of arriving, she is conned out of most of her funds by some sharp talking New Yorker. She, still carrying her bags, follows the address on the business card left her by the con artist to an office building where she auditions for a dancing part. Having no money left, she asks the producers for an advance and they give her a place to stay in the "Chateau," which turns out to be a converted office next door with bunks for a dozen would-be starlets. Trixie, as she now calls herself, finds no other than her con man on the same floor and he is none other than "Charlie" who is running a new publishing house, Hard Case Crime and is also running from a beating by none other than Mickey Spillane. Could "Charlie" be an alter ego for Charles Ardai? Hard to tell.
In addition to her dancing career (at a club run by mobsters, of course), it seems Trixie is an aspiring novelist who writes a novel (using the pen name "anonymous") telling the story about a how a famous mobster is robbed of $3 million. Since truth is always stranger than fiction, it turns out that the mobster was actually robbed of $3 million and, of course, Trixie is the prime suspect since she bragged about it in her book.
With that as a backdrop, Ardai takes the reader on a journey through late fifties New York and pits Trixie and Charlie against a mobster determined to get his money back.
Ardai had a little fun with this one, throwing in odd bits of parody throughout the book. He also named each chapter after a Hard Case Crime book. The title refers not just to the book's number within the ranks of Hard Case publishing history, but also to a card game that a mobster likes to play. One card is removed from the deck and the odds are fifty-to-one that the player can now guess the top card. Guess it and maybe you live a little longer. Fail to guess it and there might be a new bullet hole in your chest.
It's a great fun novel to read in and of itself and the bits of parody that Ardai throws in actually do not take away from the finished product. I really enjoyed reading this one.
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Top reviews from other countries
Amazon Customer
A brilliant piece of writing to celebrate hard case crime's success.
Reviewed in Canada on February 22, 2016
Mr. Brian O. Connor
The editor backfires.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 25, 2010