Night Squad - fast-paced David Goodis noir crime novel republished by Blackmask featuring the cover of the original 1961 edition.
There they are, two sleek, tough looking dudes in suits and dress hats stepping from the light of a police precinct, venturing into the night, ready to take on the world of crime.
We can see the price of the original edition in the upper right corner: 35 cents. Readers back then handed over their coins for a tale of intrigue, action and danger in the slums of the big, bad city of Philadelpha.
Never doubt it for a second, David Goodis delivered the goods - plenty of fists, plenty of bullets, plenty of bodies for the morgue.
The action takes place in a section of the City of Brotherly Shove dubbed The Swamp. Aptly called since the dingy row houses and narrow streets are surrounded on three sides by murky, stinking bogs and rats as big as cats infest every gutter and alleyway.
In the first pages we are told how a huge rat made its way into the run-down home of main character Corey Bradford when Corey was a baby and sank its rat teeth in his thigh. Not only that, Corey's mother tells Corry how, before Corey was born, a pack of starving rats, smelling blood, swarmed Corey's policeman father when he lain wounded in an alley, leaving the man in blue a pile of bones. I'm here to tell you the stench of rats and bogs permeates the atmosphere of the entire novel.
Here's a snatch of action from the first pages taking place in the backroom of a bar where Corey joins a bunch of burly guys sitting around a table playing poker. "It all happened very fast, the back door opening and two men coming in, showing guns. The men wore horror masks that covered their entire heads. One was a werewolf and the other was a stomach-turning combination of hyena and horned Satan."
Moments later, thanks to Corey's quick reflexes and courage, the werewolf and hyena are lying in their own blood.
And what kind of police do we find patrolling The Swamp? Not only the regular cops but the Night Squad, a fringe unit the newspapers call barbarians and civic groups call butchers, a unit headed up by one Henry McDermott, Detective-Sergeant with a reputation for brutality, torture and for being utterly merciless. Not exactly the kind of upstanding police officer those moms and dads back in the 1950s where likely to see on their black-and-white TVs.
Back on Corey Bradford. Corey was a cop on a beat but had his badge taken away after being accused of accepting bribes. However, for his courage in that bar scene noted above, Corey is hired by Walter Grogan, head gangster in The Swamp.
The plot thickens. Later that same night, McDermott makes Corey a new member of the Night Squad.
Events pop off and Corey is caught in the crossfire. Lots of events, lots of popping. David Goodis uses words in the service of action, so much action Corey is lucky to catch a few hours sleep at night.
One way to look at the novel is through the lens of the mythic archetypes as popularized by Joseph Campbell. We have: outcast and hero, damsel in distress, enchantress, forces of evil, trickster and mentor.
A tale of grit, grime, blood and redemption. Throw down your coins and join the Night Squad.
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