What do you think?
Rate this book
Obsession
Noir fiction, this is the mass market paperback that Jean Luc Godard's French new wave film "Pierrot Le Fou" (Pete the Madman) is loosely based on. It is rare, out of print and difficult to find.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1963
1 person is currently reading
264 people want to read
About the author
Lionel White
93 books37 followersLionel White was a crime reporter who wrote around 38 suspenseful thrillers beginning with The Snatchers in 1953 and ending with The Walled Yard in 1978.
Most of his books were translated into a number of different languages and his earlier novels were published as Gold Medal pulp hard-boiled crime fiction, but when Duttons began a line of mystery and suspense books, he also wrote for them.
He was most well known for what a New York Times review described as "the master of the big caper."
A number of his books were made into movies and Stanley Kubrick liked his book 'Clean Break' (1955) so much that he licensed the rights for his film "The Killing" in 1956.
In Quentin Tarantino's film "Reservoir Dogs", Lionel White is listed as an inspiration for the film in the credits.
Gerry Wolstenholme
May 2011
Most of his books were translated into a number of different languages and his earlier novels were published as Gold Medal pulp hard-boiled crime fiction, but when Duttons began a line of mystery and suspense books, he also wrote for them.
He was most well known for what a New York Times review described as "the master of the big caper."
A number of his books were made into movies and Stanley Kubrick liked his book 'Clean Break' (1955) so much that he licensed the rights for his film "The Killing" in 1956.
In Quentin Tarantino's film "Reservoir Dogs", Lionel White is listed as an inspiration for the film in the credits.
Gerry Wolstenholme
May 2011
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 7, 2020
This is the first edition hardcover.
In Lionel White’s novel titled “Obsession” we get Conrad Madden who paid little attention to the seventeen-year-old baby sitter when she arrived the night of the dance. Conrad’s head was totally full of martinis and personal problems. But when at the end of the long evening, Conrad took the girl home.
She saw to it that she made an impression on him. So Conrad spent the night with her and then woke up the next morning to find her murdered. Lionel White tells this exciting story of an innocent man who finds himself caught in a whirlpool of crime because he was so obsessed by a girl's beauty that he could not extricate himself from her evil.
In Lionel White’s novel titled “Obsession” we get Conrad Madden who paid little attention to the seventeen-year-old baby sitter when she arrived the night of the dance. Conrad’s head was totally full of martinis and personal problems. But when at the end of the long evening, Conrad took the girl home.
She saw to it that she made an impression on him. So Conrad spent the night with her and then woke up the next morning to find her murdered. Lionel White tells this exciting story of an innocent man who finds himself caught in a whirlpool of crime because he was so obsessed by a girl's beauty that he could not extricate himself from her evil.
December 7, 2019
Absorbing and twisty little tale of a bored and frustrated man who runs off with the sexy babysitter. Bad things and dead bodies seem to follow this girl with "azure eyes" everywhere she and her paramour go, and the protagonist is never sure whether she is who and what she claims to be. The story is very much in the film noir category, and I found it to be a cousin of novels like "The Postman Always Rings Twice."
August 28, 2025
Visit JetBlackDragonfly (The Man Who Read Too Much) at www.edenthompson.ca/blog
for a large clean copy of the paperback image, and over 900 book reviews in all genres
"A gripping story of a man who destroyed himself... in an obsession with a girl half his age." Conrad Madden rebels against his humdrum life in this slow-burn thriller.
Married to Marta, with a suburban house and two disdainful kids, he has been out of work for months but usually drinks the day away in New York bars. One night, they attend a neighborhood party (for drunks and swingers), with a friend providing Allie, the babysitter. After driving the seventeen-year-old back to her furnished apartment, she invites him up for a nightcap. He doesn't know what he is walking into. Waking up hungover the next morning amidst empty bottles, she tells him Marta came looking for him, telling him not to return after finding them in bed together. There is also a man on the couch—stabbed through the chest. He was a boyfriend and bagman for the mob, and on the table is a case filled with $16,000. They have no choice but to run. In South Carolina, they change their looks and identities, now assumed to be a well-to-do married couple, members of the golf club. But Allie cannot be tamed. They leave it behind for Florida, where a man recognizes Allie from the past. To keep him quiet, Allie goes to his home, calling in the middle of the night for Conrad to join her. There he encounters murder and the mob, beaten and left for dead with Allie nowhere to be found.
You would think after escaping with his life, he would forget her. Instead, he tracks her into the exciting third section of the story. She is living large in Las Vegas with a man she calls her brother, Joel Rocco, the moneyman for The Egyptian. They have a bold plan to rob the casino of its fortune and include him as a third. They actually pull off this 'foolproof' plan, before everything goes south and Conrad finds himself on the outside once again. But they have underestimated him; he is not the man he once was. A thief and a murderer, with no money and an obsession, he has nothing left to lose. The future doesn't exist; there is only the present.
Lionel White has been called "the master of the big caper" - his novel Clean Break adapted into the 1956 Stanley Kubrick film The Killing, and The Snatchers filmed in 1968 as The Night of the Following Day with Marlon Brando. Quentin Tarantino credits White for inspiring his 1992 Reservoir Dogs. Obsession was the basis for the 1965 Jean-Luc Godard film Pierrot le fou.
The writing elevates this novel, with my only complaint of the transitions between the three 'sections' being smoother fading away. Overall, a complete package I recommend to classic thriller lovers, leaving me with the delicious taste of a happy (?) ending.
Darkly satisfying.
for a large clean copy of the paperback image, and over 900 book reviews in all genres
"A gripping story of a man who destroyed himself... in an obsession with a girl half his age." Conrad Madden rebels against his humdrum life in this slow-burn thriller.
Married to Marta, with a suburban house and two disdainful kids, he has been out of work for months but usually drinks the day away in New York bars. One night, they attend a neighborhood party (for drunks and swingers), with a friend providing Allie, the babysitter. After driving the seventeen-year-old back to her furnished apartment, she invites him up for a nightcap. He doesn't know what he is walking into. Waking up hungover the next morning amidst empty bottles, she tells him Marta came looking for him, telling him not to return after finding them in bed together. There is also a man on the couch—stabbed through the chest. He was a boyfriend and bagman for the mob, and on the table is a case filled with $16,000. They have no choice but to run. In South Carolina, they change their looks and identities, now assumed to be a well-to-do married couple, members of the golf club. But Allie cannot be tamed. They leave it behind for Florida, where a man recognizes Allie from the past. To keep him quiet, Allie goes to his home, calling in the middle of the night for Conrad to join her. There he encounters murder and the mob, beaten and left for dead with Allie nowhere to be found.
You would think after escaping with his life, he would forget her. Instead, he tracks her into the exciting third section of the story. She is living large in Las Vegas with a man she calls her brother, Joel Rocco, the moneyman for The Egyptian. They have a bold plan to rob the casino of its fortune and include him as a third. They actually pull off this 'foolproof' plan, before everything goes south and Conrad finds himself on the outside once again. But they have underestimated him; he is not the man he once was. A thief and a murderer, with no money and an obsession, he has nothing left to lose. The future doesn't exist; there is only the present.
Lionel White has been called "the master of the big caper" - his novel Clean Break adapted into the 1956 Stanley Kubrick film The Killing, and The Snatchers filmed in 1968 as The Night of the Following Day with Marlon Brando. Quentin Tarantino credits White for inspiring his 1992 Reservoir Dogs. Obsession was the basis for the 1965 Jean-Luc Godard film Pierrot le fou.
The writing elevates this novel, with my only complaint of the transitions between the three 'sections' being smoother fading away. Overall, a complete package I recommend to classic thriller lovers, leaving me with the delicious taste of a happy (?) ending.
Darkly satisfying.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews