FORGOTTEN BOOK: NEVER SAY NO TO A KILLER

Never Say No to a Killer by "Jonathan Gant" (Clifton Adams)  (1956, as one half og an Ace Double bound with Louis Trimble's Stab in the Dark; reprinted several times under the Adams name, including by Stark House's Black Gat Press)

"The rock was about the size of a man's head.  A beautiful rock, about twenty pounds of it, and somehow I had to get over to it.  The minute I saw it I knew that rock was just the thing I needed.  This is going to take some doing, I thought, but I have to get my hands on that rock."

And so he did. Prison trustee Roy Surratt grabs the rock and uses it to repeatedly and gleefully smash the head in on the head guard for the prison work crew.  The other guard, a young man of about 25 went for his rifle, but Surratt blasted him down with the dead guard's gun.  Surratt steals a truck and heads for the nearest town. Everything about his escape plan is working just perfectly.  Noe to meet up with his former cellmate. John Venci, who has promised to hide Surratt.  Venci was one of the city's biggest mobsters, and he promised to help Surratt escape if Surratt would do him a favor.  The favor probably meant killing someone, but that did not bother Surratt at all.

But Venci did not appear at the designated meeting place.  Instead his wife, Dorris, met Surratt.  Venci had been killed a week earlier and now Dorris wanted to have Surratt kill the man she thought was responsible -- former governor Alex Burton.  Venci had more of less retired from the mob and had been spending his time coming up with ways to punish various enemies.  This included detailed blackmail schemes designed to increase pressure on his enemies until they committed suicide.  Of the twenty people Venci had targeted, a number had already killed themselves.  Butler, however, had decided it was much better to kill Venci that to kill himself.  But Butler also wanted the evidence that Venci had dug up, and when he did not find it, he decided to go after Venci's wife Dorris,

Surratt saw a good opportunity.  Kill Butler.  Use the other files to continue the blackmail schemes, and live high off the hog.

But Butler was well-protected.  How to get to him?   Butler had a girlfriend, Patricia Kelso, who was his private secretary -- with an emphasis on "private."  Surratt felt he could use her, but it turned out that she had ideas of her own...

A tough, unrelenting crime story that moves forward with the speed of a bullet, with interesting characters -- not the least of which is Surratt himself.  A stone cold killer looking out only for himself, but also a bit of a philosophizing intellectual.  This dichotomy could have been off-putting in the hands of a lesser writer, but Adams keeps things humming smoothly.

Clifton Adams (1919-1971) was the author of some fifty novels, many of them westerns, and many of them cherished Gold Medal paperback originals.  He won two Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, for Tragg's Choice in 1969, and for The Last Days of Wolf Garnett in 1970.  His most famous, most popular, and arguably best novel was the western Desperado (1950). the basis of the 1954 movie The Desperado, and also the basis of a 1958 film, Cole Younger, Gunfighter.  Adams also made a few forays into crime fiction.  His novels Whom Gods Destroy (1953) and Death's Sweet Song (1953) are recognized classics, with Never Say No to a Killer following not far behind.

For another take on this book, check out James Reasoner's Forgotten Book post from eight years ago:  https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2017/10/forgotten-books-never-say-no-to-killer.html