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DELIVER ME FROM DALLAS by Willeford, Charles Dennis McMillan Publications - 2001
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233 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1961
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About the author
Charles Willeford
77 books433 followersCharles Willeford was a remarkably fine, talented and prolific writer who wrote everything from poetry to crime fiction to literary criticism throughout the course of his impressively long and diverse career. His crime novels are distinguished by a mean'n'lean sense of narrative economy and an admirable dearth of sentimentality. He was born as Charles Ray Willeford III on January 2, 1919 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Willeford's parents both died of tuberculosis when he was a little boy and he subsequently lived either with his grandmother or at boarding schools. Charles became a hobo in his early teens. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps at age sixteen and was stationed in the Philippines. Willeford served as a tank commander with the 10th Armored Division in Europe during World War II. He won several medals for his military service: the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts, and the Luxembourg Croix de Guerre. Charles retired from the army as a Master Sergeant. Willeford's first novel "High Priest of California" was published in 1953. This solid debut was followed by such equally excellent novels as "Pick-Up" (this book won a Beacon Fiction Award), "Wild Wives," "The Woman Chaser," "Cockfighter" (this particular book won the Mark Twain Award), and "The Burnt Orange Heresy." Charles achieved his greatest commercial and critical success with four outstanding novels about hapless Florida homicide detective Hoke Moseley: "Miami Blues," "New Hope for the Dead," "Sideswipe," and "The Way We Die Now." Outside of his novels, he also wrote the short story anthology "The Machine in Ward Eleven," the poetry collections "The Outcast Poets" and "Proletarian Laughter," and the nonfiction book "Something About A Soldier." Willeford attended both Palm Beach Junior College and the University of Miami. He taught a course in humanities at the University of Miami and was an associate professor who taught classes in both philosophy and English at Miami Dade Junior College. Charles was married three times and was an associate editor for "Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine." Three of Willeford's novels have been adapted into movies: Monte Hellman delivered a bleakly fascinating character study with "Cockfighter" (Charles wrote the script and has a sizable supporting role as the referee of a cockfighting tournament which climaxes the picture), George Armitage hit one out of the ballpark with the wonderfully quirky "Miami Blues," and Robinson Devor scored a bull's eye with the offbeat "The Woman Chaser." Charles popped up in a small part as a bartender in the fun redneck car chase romp "Thunder and Lightning." Charles Willeford died of a heart attack at age 69 on March 27, 1988.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
November 1, 2024
"Jes' one o' them lucky spells what come along once't in a lifetime. But most folks gittin' sech a break dont have enough gumption to grab a-holt an' make the most of it. "
Willeford loved his psychos. This book is upto its neck in violent people. Both men and women.
Bill Brown, recently demoted to traffic cop after taking bribes, punches a traffic rule breaking guy in his face and then escapes to Dallas. I thought this was going to be a man on the run novel. It sort of is, but Willeford will not let the man on the run simply rest in some run down motel and romance the housekeeping woman. Bill hates female taxidrivers and Dallas is full of them.
Bill accidentally tangles with a bunch of poor Oklahomans who are newly rich after kidnapping a little girl and taking the ransom successfully. Junior Knowles, one of the kidnappers is a typical charming, daring and psychotic Willeford villain (like Freddie Fenger in Miami Blues and Troy Louden in Sideswipe) often pulled down by sentimental women or family or just some dumbass they let into their lives.
Then there is the old rich Texan family bent on getting revenge on the kidnappers.
It is a violent book. No, it is not dark. It is just reality. When you drink too much and lie awake in bed early in the morning with the curtains drawn, just before the early morning religious music (in India) you think all these thoughts. You have these fantasies. You are a man on the run. You robbed a bank. Hahaha! But then you wake up, make some black coffee and log into work. Read the quote at the beginning of this review.
Willeford loved his psychos. This book is upto its neck in violent people. Both men and women.
Bill Brown, recently demoted to traffic cop after taking bribes, punches a traffic rule breaking guy in his face and then escapes to Dallas. I thought this was going to be a man on the run novel. It sort of is, but Willeford will not let the man on the run simply rest in some run down motel and romance the housekeeping woman. Bill hates female taxidrivers and Dallas is full of them.
Bill accidentally tangles with a bunch of poor Oklahomans who are newly rich after kidnapping a little girl and taking the ransom successfully. Junior Knowles, one of the kidnappers is a typical charming, daring and psychotic Willeford villain (like Freddie Fenger in Miami Blues and Troy Louden in Sideswipe) often pulled down by sentimental women or family or just some dumbass they let into their lives.
Then there is the old rich Texan family bent on getting revenge on the kidnappers.
It is a violent book. No, it is not dark. It is just reality. When you drink too much and lie awake in bed early in the morning with the curtains drawn, just before the early morning religious music (in India) you think all these thoughts. You have these fantasies. You are a man on the run. You robbed a bank. Hahaha! But then you wake up, make some black coffee and log into work. Read the quote at the beginning of this review.
February 2, 2024
Somewhat traditional crime tale, well written and plenty of action but hardly captivating and a plot that felt somewhat obscure and implausible from the start. The POV narration rotates among the main characters each chapter, which seemed more like a novelty since the extra POVs didn't add much to the story. I found myself irritated by the country bumpkin vernacular Willeford used for many of the characters, dumbed down and replete with misspellings. Unfortunately the whip from the title proved to be a bit of a red herring and was only ever wielded by an old dude, not the vixen pictured on the cover.
November 9, 2020
It's better not to start a'runnin' in the first place, 'cause the road jus' don't have no end once't you start.
Bill Brown's having another shitty day as a traffic cop back on the beat in Los Angeles. He was busted a while ago from the Auto Theft Bureau after getting caught soliciting bribes.
Some guy makes a right turn on red and Bill blows his whistle to warn the miscreant. The guy looks Bill directly in the eye and makes the turn anyway, a great big grin on his face. This enrages Bill, so he blows the whistle again and goes after the wise-ass whereupon he punches the guy so hard, he figures he's killed him. So Bill Brown does what any guy would do under the circumstances - he runs to a nearby bus station and catches a bus to Dallas, Texas.
Bill arrives -penniless- in the Dallas Greyhound station where he braces a yokel looking older guy and cons his suitcase from him, thinking he'll find a passable suit of clothes he can wear long enough to cadge a few bucks here and there to hold him over until he can find suitable employment.
Or at least a hotel room where he can grab a few hours' sleep.
Turns out the suitcase he swiped from the yokel is packed with over fifty grand in cash bills.
Natural curiosity takes hold of the cop side of BIll Brown and trouble ensues.
Every other chapter in this novel is "told" by a revolving cast of Okie kidnappers, bad girls in deep trouble, rich dames with the hots for homicides and hardboiled, manly-types and assorted sadists where necessary.
It's been a while between Willeford novels for me. This was such a pleasurable -if occasionally troubling- read that I'm tempted to call it one of Charles Willeford's Top 5 greatest novels. It's so completely out of the Jim Thompson school of mean & ornery that I'm tempted to call it the best novel Jim Thompson never wrote.
Absolutely required reading for fans of Charles Willeford, Jim Thompson, Charles Williams, Dan J. Marlowe and the rest of the Lion Books/Gold Medal gallery of greats.
Action-packed from start to finish.
Please save the terrific Jesse Sublett introduction for reading after you've read the novel. It's a fun, breezy read but potential spoilers abound.
August 16, 2012
I've read a fair number of Charles Willeford's novels, and I've never been disappointed in one. His Florida cop detective Hoke Moseley series (Miami Blues, New Hope for the Dead, Sideswipe, and The Way We Die Now) is his best known works. Those books came later in his writing career. WHIP HAND was a Gold Medal entry published by a W. Franklin Saunders in 1961, who was much later identifed to be Charles Willeford. At any rate, WHIP HAND takes place in Dallas and involves an L.A. cop on the lam, three Okie kidnappers, and the wealthy, proud Texan family of the kidnapped child. The prose isn't the most polished, but the story is deftly told through alternating character's viewpoints. There are moments of wicked black humor, several of which got a laugh out of me. The plot veers in unexpected twists, so the entertainment value is rated high. All in all, WHIP HAND is quite readable, and even worthy of a second reading if I ever get the time to revisit it.
April 18, 2010
This is the second time through this book and I have to admit I admired it even more this time. Elmore Leonard said you should never write in dialect, but Charles Willeford (it was ghostwritten for his friend Frank Sanders) pulls it off. I loved it though the violence was at times hard to take even for a veteran of hardboiled crime novels like me.
July 16, 2023
Whip Hand or Deliver Me From Dallas (Willeford’s manuscript) was published in 1961. Whip Hand has W. Sanders’ name on the cover, but from what I have read, Sanders was the co-author. It might have had something to do with the chief editor at Fawcett Gold Medal not being a fan of Willeford's writing style. Either way, this story is told from many characters’ POVs of a trio of under-average intelligent men who kidnap a young girl, receive the ransom, and kill the girl anyways. At the same time, a cop from L.A. heads to Dallas to escape illegal activities and gets tangled in the criminal's web.
“It looks like a man, once’t he’s got hisself into something big, keeps on gitting in further and further.”
“Dear God! Deliver me from Dallas—and women drivers!”
—W. Franklin Sanders or Charles Willeford
“It looks like a man, once’t he’s got hisself into something big, keeps on gitting in further and further.”
“Dear God! Deliver me from Dallas—and women drivers!”
—W. Franklin Sanders or Charles Willeford
October 7, 2012
My favorite Willeford so far (and I'm working my way through all of them) a kidnap / murder worked through switching 1st person narrators where dang near the entire spectrum of white US southern society is covered.
For understanding the United States of America,no one is better than Willeford.
'My headache was gone!'
For understanding the United States of America,no one is better than Willeford.
'My headache was gone!'
August 4, 2013
whip hand, charles willeford...from 19--, kindle version, and it has that cover with the woman standing there, a whip in one hand..."w. franklin sanders"....35-cents at the top! heh! lash by bloody lash, the she-devil from dallas would get revenge
hoo-rah!
i think this is the 15th willeford title for me. begins:
1
bill brown
my reinitiation was off to a thundering start. it was my first day back in traffic after three good years in auto theft bureau, and the day was not a pleasant one for me. not pleasant in the smallest detail. my determination to make the best of my comedown and see it through was already running into serious trouble. shame and disgust were banging brutal, body blows against my determination, and my hot temper was a rotten referee in the clinches.
i told myself i wasn't the first man on the force to be knocked down as an example...
onward & upward
i suspect there's things he would have changed...things...words he would have changed had he written it later...probably felt right at the time but banging brutal, body blows? heh! don't matter. i'm a fan of willeford. he can tell a good story.
time place scene settings
*there's nothing definitive that indicates the "now" of the story although it was published 1961 so place it there +/- a year or two...there are words like "brogans" and "usherette" so might could use those words to place it in time
*los angeles, eighth & broadway, downtown l.a. story opens
*a familiar blue lincoln sedan
*georgia street receiving, los angeles
*down eighth toward figueroa
*los angeles bus station
*bathroom at the bus station
*drug counter at the bus station
*central headquarters, police, los angeles
*bus
*through the city, across the los angeles river bridge, out past lincoln park, down the highway stretching through the orange groves. arizona, new mexico, texas, and hello, dallas--
*dallas
*ed mercer's old lasalle
*pool hall in oklahoma
*texas state fair
*cheap-looking tourist place...on the fort worth road a-piece
*cabin at the above...#16
*a big new car...the wire fence around that big cement factory
*the southwesterner hotel, dallas
*room 503
*the grill next door to the southwesterner
*cashier's corner at the grill
*a big parking lot...little old office building...outhouse
*commerce street, dallas
*a likker store...alley nearby
*a cafe (near the parking lot)
*men's store
*pawn shop
*the crescent hotel, dallas, room 303, where madge stays
*an alcove to a store (near the bus station)
*sulphide, oklahoma...must be where leonie lives, where junior calls, patched through central
*the twirly whip...meeting place at the texas state fair
*the midway
*a drugstore...or another...a number of them
*the dixon home in highland park section of dallas
*a number of city buses...taxis...dallas
*showboat...finest operetta of the season...fair/opera house at fair
*the dixon family (miss kay's) cad convertible
*an old hudson sedan of doc mercedes, dark green, two-door sedan
*the official buick...of the dallas police chief/detective fred campbell
*2358 roseland avenue, dallas, doctor paul e mercedes...google earth
*roadblocks...one at ft. worth pike
*airport, love field, dallas
*gate #7...a flight to houston
*the popular miss kay dixon's jaguar
*the shreveport highway
*a two-story house a-setting back a good piece from the road on the left-hand side
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
characters
*bill brown, cop, busted down to traffic in los angeles...originally from the mojave desert town of lancaster, california...left there years ago
*ex-police commissioner
*new police commissioner
*the one driving the lincoln
*"the man"
*the pair of hubs
*bill brown's brother, ed...also a cop...apt 3c, 4125 figueroa street, los angeles (google earth)
*the pedestrians
*a driver
*a kid about seventeen...his jaw at half-mast
*fist-shaking pedestrians
*the cop on duty, bus station, l.a....griego of the main street detail
*the other mexican
*company...short, squint-eyed, pale, ugly and serious...pock-marked bodyguard
*shine (shoe shine)...w/"the taste of a boyle heights vaselino"
*two men from central headquarters
*junior knowles, from oklahoma, poor...brother of donald
*donald knowles, junior's younger brother
*el mercer, associate of junior's, donald's, elsworth
*fancy-pants fella from tulsa that come into the pool
*a little gal at the state fair, about 6-yr-old, purse, purpose...mary ann dixon we learn her name later in the story
*somebody throwed something out in the ditch
*leonie hempel...girl that junior knows, wants to get hitched to, from sulphide, oklahoma, travels to dalls to be w/junior...ma & pa still cranking out babies...she was pulled out of school at age 11 to make house etc
*clerk at the southwesterner hotel dallas
*bellhop at the southwesterner
*cashier...willowy lovely...at the grill next to the hotel
*jack...he works the second floor...bellhop
*house dick and two city detectives...
*a man in white overalls
*a man that was mostly face (heh!)
*man at the likker store...a cop in the alley nearby
*man at the pawn shop...man at the men's store
*girl who bumps into donald as he sits in the cafe
*man at the cafe
*a number of lady taxi drivers
*man at the tourist camp
*madge baeder, meets donald in the cafe
*little gal in that pitcher...madge's sister
*a kid junior used to know...madge reminds him of him
*"she"...who answered the phone in sulphide, oklahoma
*mrs. allister...asked to run git leonie
*police lieutenant fred campbell, the dallas police
*a morning news reporter
*mr. galin dixon, wealthy, broken-hearted father of little mary ann...oil money apparently, judging by the photos in the home
*the popular miss kay dixon, older sister of little mary ann
*private physician...whose care mr dixon is under
*private eyes...of the dixon family
*a cowboy who had the whip used on him
*the rest of the boys who caught the cowboy at the border
*the undertaker was prompt in coming
*the feller at the truck gate at the state fair
*lady selling tickets to the opera house
*a girl usher at the showboat operetta, fair ...an usherette
*a old biddy setting in back
*a man in front...gave me a terrible disgusted look
*three dallasites worked at being a cosmopolitan clan
*the caged angel slid a ticket out to me
*the audience (operetta)
*the old man playing the blustering showboat captain
*"zeb rice"...one of several aliases that junior uses in the story..."zeb rice" is the name he signs at the tourist camp...second one i think
*doctor mercedes...eye-doctor...doctor paul e mercedes
*the nurse at the dixon spread
*al...cop, at the bus station, stationed there on the look-out
*a tall lanky feller w/patches of gray on his head
*dr mercedes's wife...who acts as nurse
*the other older girls in the family (of leonie's)
*western union messenger...w/whom bill brown speaks
*bob...lieutenant fred campbell, dallas police, driver
*a woman in oak cliff received a box in the mail
*crowd rubber-necking at dr. mercedes's place
*tommy conover on duty inside the mercedes's place
*a patrolman on the porch
*three uniforms at the airport, love field, dallas...one of them marvin, another harry
*"mr and mrs george smith"...another alias of junior/leonie
*some folks looking at me kind of curious
*the man at the information window
*an old woman about fifty-five or sixty
*farmer at the first house who wouldn't allow marvin/harry to look see as they didn't have a warrant
*
*
*
a note on the narration
three chapters in and the telling starts w/bill brown in los angeles...then chapter two the telling is through junior knowles, oklahoma to dallas texas...3rd returns to bill brown. other reviews mention this telling...chapter headings w/the character doing the 1st-person eye-telling...here in 3, we got characters from the previous two chapters coming together. with the exception of mary ann dixon, the names in bold above are the eye-narrators of the various chapters
a quote or two
he was an oddity of some magnitude.
obviously a man of the soil. a loose-looking, fat, ultra-seedy hick. faded levis hugged sockless ankles above half-laced brogans which had displaced their quota of clods. an old suit coat hung in an ill fit over his once-white undershirt. he didn't look prosperous.
update, finished, 5 aug 13, monday afternoon 5:35 p.m. e.s.t.
good read. willeford knows how to spin a good yarn. an interesting take, the narration, all these 1st-person chapters, different characters, in bold above. willeford uses the word dumb in a curious fashion herein...a character dumb a few wood steps to the gallery. first time i saw it i passed it off...but the word is used 3-4-5-6 times...mostly by junior, possibly by bill once...the driver dumb out, holding a gun in his right hand.
heh!...and now i'm wondering if that is a kind of kindle-typo...seen this before, not this word, but others...is that s'posed to be "clumb"?
"clumb a few wood steps"..."driver clumb out"? could be...that "c-l" being mistaken for a "d" for some kindle-reason? cue the soundtrack.
some of the exchanges between the lieutenant and bill are a hoot, laugh-out-loud...might could be that the eye-narration from junior's p.o.v. got to be just a tad too folksy at times...although leonie's p.o.v. is 'folksy'...country, what have you...and that passed muster...might could be that junior needed killing and that played a part is what i'm saying...
hoo-rah!
i think this is the 15th willeford title for me. begins:
1
bill brown
my reinitiation was off to a thundering start. it was my first day back in traffic after three good years in auto theft bureau, and the day was not a pleasant one for me. not pleasant in the smallest detail. my determination to make the best of my comedown and see it through was already running into serious trouble. shame and disgust were banging brutal, body blows against my determination, and my hot temper was a rotten referee in the clinches.
i told myself i wasn't the first man on the force to be knocked down as an example...
onward & upward
i suspect there's things he would have changed...things...words he would have changed had he written it later...probably felt right at the time but banging brutal, body blows? heh! don't matter. i'm a fan of willeford. he can tell a good story.
time place scene settings
*there's nothing definitive that indicates the "now" of the story although it was published 1961 so place it there +/- a year or two...there are words like "brogans" and "usherette" so might could use those words to place it in time
*los angeles, eighth & broadway, downtown l.a. story opens
*a familiar blue lincoln sedan
*georgia street receiving, los angeles
*down eighth toward figueroa
*los angeles bus station
*bathroom at the bus station
*drug counter at the bus station
*central headquarters, police, los angeles
*bus
*through the city, across the los angeles river bridge, out past lincoln park, down the highway stretching through the orange groves. arizona, new mexico, texas, and hello, dallas--
*dallas
*ed mercer's old lasalle
*pool hall in oklahoma
*texas state fair
*cheap-looking tourist place...on the fort worth road a-piece
*cabin at the above...#16
*a big new car...the wire fence around that big cement factory
*the southwesterner hotel, dallas
*room 503
*the grill next door to the southwesterner
*cashier's corner at the grill
*a big parking lot...little old office building...outhouse
*commerce street, dallas
*a likker store...alley nearby
*a cafe (near the parking lot)
*men's store
*pawn shop
*the crescent hotel, dallas, room 303, where madge stays
*an alcove to a store (near the bus station)
*sulphide, oklahoma...must be where leonie lives, where junior calls, patched through central
*the twirly whip...meeting place at the texas state fair
*the midway
*a drugstore...or another...a number of them
*the dixon home in highland park section of dallas
*a number of city buses...taxis...dallas
*showboat...finest operetta of the season...fair/opera house at fair
*the dixon family (miss kay's) cad convertible
*an old hudson sedan of doc mercedes, dark green, two-door sedan
*the official buick...of the dallas police chief/detective fred campbell
*2358 roseland avenue, dallas, doctor paul e mercedes...google earth
*roadblocks...one at ft. worth pike
*airport, love field, dallas
*gate #7...a flight to houston
*the popular miss kay dixon's jaguar
*the shreveport highway
*a two-story house a-setting back a good piece from the road on the left-hand side
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
characters
*bill brown, cop, busted down to traffic in los angeles...originally from the mojave desert town of lancaster, california...left there years ago
*ex-police commissioner
*new police commissioner
*the one driving the lincoln
*"the man"
*the pair of hubs
*bill brown's brother, ed...also a cop...apt 3c, 4125 figueroa street, los angeles (google earth)
*the pedestrians
*a driver
*a kid about seventeen...his jaw at half-mast
*fist-shaking pedestrians
*the cop on duty, bus station, l.a....griego of the main street detail
*the other mexican
*company...short, squint-eyed, pale, ugly and serious...pock-marked bodyguard
*shine (shoe shine)...w/"the taste of a boyle heights vaselino"
*two men from central headquarters
*junior knowles, from oklahoma, poor...brother of donald
*donald knowles, junior's younger brother
*el mercer, associate of junior's, donald's, elsworth
*fancy-pants fella from tulsa that come into the pool
*a little gal at the state fair, about 6-yr-old, purse, purpose...mary ann dixon we learn her name later in the story
*somebody throwed something out in the ditch
*leonie hempel...girl that junior knows, wants to get hitched to, from sulphide, oklahoma, travels to dalls to be w/junior...ma & pa still cranking out babies...she was pulled out of school at age 11 to make house etc
*clerk at the southwesterner hotel dallas
*bellhop at the southwesterner
*cashier...willowy lovely...at the grill next to the hotel
*jack...he works the second floor...bellhop
*house dick and two city detectives...
*a man in white overalls
*a man that was mostly face (heh!)
*man at the likker store...a cop in the alley nearby
*man at the pawn shop...man at the men's store
*girl who bumps into donald as he sits in the cafe
*man at the cafe
*a number of lady taxi drivers
*man at the tourist camp
*madge baeder, meets donald in the cafe
*little gal in that pitcher...madge's sister
*a kid junior used to know...madge reminds him of him
*"she"...who answered the phone in sulphide, oklahoma
*mrs. allister...asked to run git leonie
*police lieutenant fred campbell, the dallas police
*a morning news reporter
*mr. galin dixon, wealthy, broken-hearted father of little mary ann...oil money apparently, judging by the photos in the home
*the popular miss kay dixon, older sister of little mary ann
*private physician...whose care mr dixon is under
*private eyes...of the dixon family
*a cowboy who had the whip used on him
*the rest of the boys who caught the cowboy at the border
*the undertaker was prompt in coming
*the feller at the truck gate at the state fair
*lady selling tickets to the opera house
*a girl usher at the showboat operetta, fair ...an usherette
*a old biddy setting in back
*a man in front...gave me a terrible disgusted look
*three dallasites worked at being a cosmopolitan clan
*the caged angel slid a ticket out to me
*the audience (operetta)
*the old man playing the blustering showboat captain
*"zeb rice"...one of several aliases that junior uses in the story..."zeb rice" is the name he signs at the tourist camp...second one i think
*doctor mercedes...eye-doctor...doctor paul e mercedes
*the nurse at the dixon spread
*al...cop, at the bus station, stationed there on the look-out
*a tall lanky feller w/patches of gray on his head
*dr mercedes's wife...who acts as nurse
*the other older girls in the family (of leonie's)
*western union messenger...w/whom bill brown speaks
*bob...lieutenant fred campbell, dallas police, driver
*a woman in oak cliff received a box in the mail
*crowd rubber-necking at dr. mercedes's place
*tommy conover on duty inside the mercedes's place
*a patrolman on the porch
*three uniforms at the airport, love field, dallas...one of them marvin, another harry
*"mr and mrs george smith"...another alias of junior/leonie
*some folks looking at me kind of curious
*the man at the information window
*an old woman about fifty-five or sixty
*farmer at the first house who wouldn't allow marvin/harry to look see as they didn't have a warrant
*
*
*
a note on the narration
three chapters in and the telling starts w/bill brown in los angeles...then chapter two the telling is through junior knowles, oklahoma to dallas texas...3rd returns to bill brown. other reviews mention this telling...chapter headings w/the character doing the 1st-person eye-telling...here in 3, we got characters from the previous two chapters coming together. with the exception of mary ann dixon, the names in bold above are the eye-narrators of the various chapters
a quote or two
he was an oddity of some magnitude.
obviously a man of the soil. a loose-looking, fat, ultra-seedy hick. faded levis hugged sockless ankles above half-laced brogans which had displaced their quota of clods. an old suit coat hung in an ill fit over his once-white undershirt. he didn't look prosperous.
update, finished, 5 aug 13, monday afternoon 5:35 p.m. e.s.t.
good read. willeford knows how to spin a good yarn. an interesting take, the narration, all these 1st-person chapters, different characters, in bold above. willeford uses the word dumb in a curious fashion herein...a character dumb a few wood steps to the gallery. first time i saw it i passed it off...but the word is used 3-4-5-6 times...mostly by junior, possibly by bill once...the driver dumb out, holding a gun in his right hand.
heh!...and now i'm wondering if that is a kind of kindle-typo...seen this before, not this word, but others...is that s'posed to be "clumb"?
"clumb a few wood steps"..."driver clumb out"? could be...that "c-l" being mistaken for a "d" for some kindle-reason? cue the soundtrack.
some of the exchanges between the lieutenant and bill are a hoot, laugh-out-loud...might could be that the eye-narration from junior's p.o.v. got to be just a tad too folksy at times...although leonie's p.o.v. is 'folksy'...country, what have you...and that passed muster...might could be that junior needed killing and that played a part is what i'm saying...
May 13, 2015
This hard-boiled crime novel tells the tale of the kidnapping of Mary Ann Dixon, a child from a rich Dallas family, by three Okies and the trainwreck that follows. The narrative genius of this tale is that it's told from seven characters' perspectives that overlap as the story unfolds. I'm a recent convert to Willeford after reading Pick-Up, but I am adding him to the ranks of Jim Thompson as a crime writer who writes the HELL out of a story. Available for free! http://manybooks.net/titles/willeford...
January 26, 2026
"Dear God! Deliver me from Dallas--and women drivers!"
Bill Brown is an L.A. cop on the take who just beat a civilian to death at a traffic crossing. As fast as he can, he boards the first bus to Dallas. When he arrives, he cons an Oklahoma farmer out of his suitcase at the bus station. He is hoping for a change of clothes and a razor, but the suitcase contains five thousand dollars in marked bills…
Three Oklahoma farmers kidnap a rich little girl, collect the ransom money from her oil baron father, and then dump the girl's body in a trailer camp. They have stumbled onto the perfect crime-- until a nosy West Coast cop steals a third of their cash…
Kay Haas and her bullwhip-wielding sadist of a father will stop at nothing to find little Mary Anne--and introduce her kidnappers to range-style justice…
This book by Charles Willeford and W. Franklin Sanders is at turns dark, funny, and violent. The plot is pulp fiction mayhem at its finest.
This book has an interesting publication history behind it:
The manuscript was found in Charles Willeford's papers after his death with the byline "by Charles Willeford and W. Franklin Sanders". A letter purportedly written from Sanders to Willeford was bound with the manuscript. Textual analysis makes it clear that Willeford wrote several of its chapters--indeed, their style is so distinctive they could hardly have been written by anyone else--but other chapters have the whiff of a less talented amateur about them.
It is not entirely certain whether Sanders is a real flesh-and-blood collaborator. He could be an invented personality, a literary hoax. However, Willeford's widow does not believe so. Based on the information in the letter, she believes Willeford and Sanders met at Marin Community College in 1951-52, and they partnered on this literary endeavor shortly thereafter, with each man agreeing to write alternating chapters.
What is not in doubt is that this book was eventually published in 1961 by Gold Medal Books. It bore the title Whip Hand, the single byline "W. Franklin Sanders", and a memorable cover painting. Several changes had been made. In particular, the first chapter was extensively rewritten (and not to its advantage, it must be said).
If Willeford knew about the publication of the book or the editorial hack job that was perpetrated to it, he never mentioned it to any family or friends the rest of his life. This seems out of character. One, he was renowned within writing circles for his willingness to own up to anything he wrote. (Lawrence Block once said Willeford was the only author he knew willing to stamp his own name on tawdry sex novels.) Two, he was known to complain loudly and openly against editors who tampered with his books without permission.
All these factors seem to point to the theory that Sanders and Willeford co-wrote the book in the early 1950's but were unable to find a publisher for it. A decade after their association ended, Sanders placed the book with Gold Medal without sharing the credit-- or the profit. Willeford likely went to his grave never realizing Whip Hand existed.
I wish I had listened to this novel on audiobook, because reading it in print is difficult. The authors frequently resort to phonetic spelling of the Oklahoma dialect, leading to long passages of sentences like these:
"Findin' the house where the kid had useta live taken me longer'n I'd figgered on an' I begin to worry 'bout Donald sitting in that café waitin' on me. I wasn't sure I shoulda left him by hisself."
"Iff'n a guy caint prove to the cops what he's been doin', he's jes' natcherly been doin' the things they can't explain to the newspapers. Any fool knows cops do that."
"I never liked that there laugh o' his'n an' wished I had time to teach him a lesson on mindin' his own bizness."
3 stars
Bill Brown is an L.A. cop on the take who just beat a civilian to death at a traffic crossing. As fast as he can, he boards the first bus to Dallas. When he arrives, he cons an Oklahoma farmer out of his suitcase at the bus station. He is hoping for a change of clothes and a razor, but the suitcase contains five thousand dollars in marked bills…
Three Oklahoma farmers kidnap a rich little girl, collect the ransom money from her oil baron father, and then dump the girl's body in a trailer camp. They have stumbled onto the perfect crime-- until a nosy West Coast cop steals a third of their cash…
Kay Haas and her bullwhip-wielding sadist of a father will stop at nothing to find little Mary Anne--and introduce her kidnappers to range-style justice…
This book by Charles Willeford and W. Franklin Sanders is at turns dark, funny, and violent. The plot is pulp fiction mayhem at its finest.
This book has an interesting publication history behind it:
The manuscript was found in Charles Willeford's papers after his death with the byline "by Charles Willeford and W. Franklin Sanders". A letter purportedly written from Sanders to Willeford was bound with the manuscript. Textual analysis makes it clear that Willeford wrote several of its chapters--indeed, their style is so distinctive they could hardly have been written by anyone else--but other chapters have the whiff of a less talented amateur about them.
It is not entirely certain whether Sanders is a real flesh-and-blood collaborator. He could be an invented personality, a literary hoax. However, Willeford's widow does not believe so. Based on the information in the letter, she believes Willeford and Sanders met at Marin Community College in 1951-52, and they partnered on this literary endeavor shortly thereafter, with each man agreeing to write alternating chapters.
What is not in doubt is that this book was eventually published in 1961 by Gold Medal Books. It bore the title Whip Hand, the single byline "W. Franklin Sanders", and a memorable cover painting. Several changes had been made. In particular, the first chapter was extensively rewritten (and not to its advantage, it must be said).
If Willeford knew about the publication of the book or the editorial hack job that was perpetrated to it, he never mentioned it to any family or friends the rest of his life. This seems out of character. One, he was renowned within writing circles for his willingness to own up to anything he wrote. (Lawrence Block once said Willeford was the only author he knew willing to stamp his own name on tawdry sex novels.) Two, he was known to complain loudly and openly against editors who tampered with his books without permission.
All these factors seem to point to the theory that Sanders and Willeford co-wrote the book in the early 1950's but were unable to find a publisher for it. A decade after their association ended, Sanders placed the book with Gold Medal without sharing the credit-- or the profit. Willeford likely went to his grave never realizing Whip Hand existed.
I wish I had listened to this novel on audiobook, because reading it in print is difficult. The authors frequently resort to phonetic spelling of the Oklahoma dialect, leading to long passages of sentences like these:
"Findin' the house where the kid had useta live taken me longer'n I'd figgered on an' I begin to worry 'bout Donald sitting in that café waitin' on me. I wasn't sure I shoulda left him by hisself."
"Iff'n a guy caint prove to the cops what he's been doin', he's jes' natcherly been doin' the things they can't explain to the newspapers. Any fool knows cops do that."
"I never liked that there laugh o' his'n an' wished I had time to teach him a lesson on mindin' his own bizness."
3 stars
January 25, 2019
Disgraced cop and Dallas debutante take on redneck nasties. Very, very entertaining.
January 24, 2024
My first experience with Charles Willeford was the excellent story "The Machine in Ward 11"m which was printed in the surprisingly awesome (if you think of the magazine in the way that most people do nowadays) Playboy Book of Horror and the Supernatural. that story was a tight, sharp, intelligently told tale of paranoia, and had one of the greatest first-person narrative voices I've come across in some time. After reading that, I really wanted to know more about this Willeford guy. While he seems to write hard, tough-as-nails stuff, there is a tendency toward the surreal and bizarre that comes up in both pieces I've read, and is mentioned repeatedly in The Encyclopedia of Pulp Authors, which i find very compelling. It's a mixture that really works well, and means that he's more than just an average crime fiction writer, even if his books published in the 50s and 60s came from the lowest level of the cheap paperback publishing houses. So, The Whip hand happens to be the first novel by him I came across, and I read through it pretty quickly.
A caveat to all readers though: This book is definitely a bit on the zleezy side of things. On the other hand, you could argue that Willeford has a pretty smart way of handling his sleeze, and it's not entirely gratuitous, at least not all of the time. Reading this, though, I was really reminded of some of the American exploitation films of the 60s and early 70s -- the cruddier kind, you know what I mean? I don't mean "cruddy" in terms of enjoyability, but certainly in terms of content, titillation, and a kind of celebration of the seedier things in life.
Our story concerns a somewaht corrupt Los Angeles cop who has to get out of town really fast after it's discovered that he has a little too much of a taste for money. he starts off the journey well by punching a random asshole in the face, and then high-tails it for Dallas, the furthest place he can afford to go by bus with the meagre funds in his wallet. Meanwhile, three rednecks from Oklahoma also make their way to Dallas, where they plan to have a great time and drink as much liquor as they possibly can. These guys, or well, one of them in particular, the "brains" you might say, make the startling spontaneous decision to kidnap a little girl they find lost at the fairgrounds, noticing that she must be from a really rich family, and hold her for ransome. The exchange happens quickly, but the little girl doesn't make it, and now, our three hicks must split up with their cases full of money.
of course, Bill, our erstwhile cop, runs into these guys through a series of coincidences, whose absurdity is gleefully highlighted in the text. I find it cool that Willeford is quite happy to acknowledge at times that you have to suspend your disblief, but doesn't give a damn, because his stories just seem ever so slightly askew. One weird element is that as soon as Bill gets to Dallas, he develops a pounding headache that doesn't leave through the course of the book, and yet Bill repeatedly takes violent blows to the head throughout the story which should have killed him, and yet he just carries on, moaning about his head and how neither asprin nor booze gives him relief. is his Texas-spawned migraine giving Bill a superpower?
Everyone in this book is on the run in some way, and the most likeable people are not who you'd expect -- if anything, it's the two Oklahoman brothers, one of whom is young and kind of tragically sweet, worshipping his older sibling like a hero. That older brother is a psychopath, yet oddly, still comes off more fair and likeable than some of the others in this book. It's all first-person narration, and each character pretty much gets at least a chapter to narrate the story, even a couple of the accessory ones. I enjoyed this technique, though i wondered if all the POVs were strictly necessary -- did we really need chapters told by the Dallas police homicide Lieutenant for instance? They don't really add much. On the other hand, just when it's needed, Willeford gives us some narration from the women in the story. Now, it can be argued that the women only get the chance to tell their stories because we get to see their own sexually-charged perspective on their bodies: one is a prostitute who develops a liking for the younger Oklahoman brother, Donald, and wants to make real love to him before he passes out drunk, and the other is the elder sister of the little girl who was kidnapped, who turns out to have some pretty messed up ideas about sex and punishment, and even gets a just-explicit-enough masturbation scene as she thinks about her oil tycoon father whipping recalcitrant men until they scream and beg for mercy. Yes, it is that kind of book. But, he didn't have to give these women a voice at all, and he seemed to do it at exactlyt eh right time, where the reader might start to get uncomfortable being inside these men's heads all the time. it feels deliberate and calculated in a way that sometimes undercuts the sleaze a bit, at least to me.
Everyone always makes the wrong decisions, and yes, even though Junior (the elder brother) is a psychopath, he has a loving girlfriend back home, and when she also ends up in Dallas and has her own part to play in the story, I found that I wished they would get away and start a new life. Of course that's not to be, and it doesn't really end well for anyone, even though Kay Dixon gets her revenge on the killers. It's not a satisfying revenge she gets, at least not from our perspective, and seems kind of insane. Even the big beefy ex-cop Bill is afraid of her, and what it might mean to be too close to her. Not even the thought of being tied to one of the richest families in Texas is enough to make him want to stay.
SO yes, I don't think everyone will like this. The whole thing feels a bit sordid, but in a way that I think exploitation fans will kind of love. I couldn't put the book down, honestly. The different narrative voices are interesting, at times very funny, and awful, all at once. There is casual sexism and even casual racism, but the former comes mostly from our grumpy California cop and his pounding head, and the latter from the daughter of a Texas oil baron who pointedly looks down on everyone as being beneath her and her family. Willeford himself seems like he might be a little down on the state of Texas, at one point suggesting the place is "mean and full of hate". Wonder what kind of experiences he had there for real? Then again, our real troublemakers in this book all come from out of state.
A caveat to all readers though: This book is definitely a bit on the zleezy side of things. On the other hand, you could argue that Willeford has a pretty smart way of handling his sleeze, and it's not entirely gratuitous, at least not all of the time. Reading this, though, I was really reminded of some of the American exploitation films of the 60s and early 70s -- the cruddier kind, you know what I mean? I don't mean "cruddy" in terms of enjoyability, but certainly in terms of content, titillation, and a kind of celebration of the seedier things in life.
Our story concerns a somewaht corrupt Los Angeles cop who has to get out of town really fast after it's discovered that he has a little too much of a taste for money. he starts off the journey well by punching a random asshole in the face, and then high-tails it for Dallas, the furthest place he can afford to go by bus with the meagre funds in his wallet. Meanwhile, three rednecks from Oklahoma also make their way to Dallas, where they plan to have a great time and drink as much liquor as they possibly can. These guys, or well, one of them in particular, the "brains" you might say, make the startling spontaneous decision to kidnap a little girl they find lost at the fairgrounds, noticing that she must be from a really rich family, and hold her for ransome. The exchange happens quickly, but the little girl doesn't make it, and now, our three hicks must split up with their cases full of money.
of course, Bill, our erstwhile cop, runs into these guys through a series of coincidences, whose absurdity is gleefully highlighted in the text. I find it cool that Willeford is quite happy to acknowledge at times that you have to suspend your disblief, but doesn't give a damn, because his stories just seem ever so slightly askew. One weird element is that as soon as Bill gets to Dallas, he develops a pounding headache that doesn't leave through the course of the book, and yet Bill repeatedly takes violent blows to the head throughout the story which should have killed him, and yet he just carries on, moaning about his head and how neither asprin nor booze gives him relief. is his Texas-spawned migraine giving Bill a superpower?
Everyone in this book is on the run in some way, and the most likeable people are not who you'd expect -- if anything, it's the two Oklahoman brothers, one of whom is young and kind of tragically sweet, worshipping his older sibling like a hero. That older brother is a psychopath, yet oddly, still comes off more fair and likeable than some of the others in this book. It's all first-person narration, and each character pretty much gets at least a chapter to narrate the story, even a couple of the accessory ones. I enjoyed this technique, though i wondered if all the POVs were strictly necessary -- did we really need chapters told by the Dallas police homicide Lieutenant for instance? They don't really add much. On the other hand, just when it's needed, Willeford gives us some narration from the women in the story. Now, it can be argued that the women only get the chance to tell their stories because we get to see their own sexually-charged perspective on their bodies: one is a prostitute who develops a liking for the younger Oklahoman brother, Donald, and wants to make real love to him before he passes out drunk, and the other is the elder sister of the little girl who was kidnapped, who turns out to have some pretty messed up ideas about sex and punishment, and even gets a just-explicit-enough masturbation scene as she thinks about her oil tycoon father whipping recalcitrant men until they scream and beg for mercy. Yes, it is that kind of book. But, he didn't have to give these women a voice at all, and he seemed to do it at exactlyt eh right time, where the reader might start to get uncomfortable being inside these men's heads all the time. it feels deliberate and calculated in a way that sometimes undercuts the sleaze a bit, at least to me.
Everyone always makes the wrong decisions, and yes, even though Junior (the elder brother) is a psychopath, he has a loving girlfriend back home, and when she also ends up in Dallas and has her own part to play in the story, I found that I wished they would get away and start a new life. Of course that's not to be, and it doesn't really end well for anyone, even though Kay Dixon gets her revenge on the killers. It's not a satisfying revenge she gets, at least not from our perspective, and seems kind of insane. Even the big beefy ex-cop Bill is afraid of her, and what it might mean to be too close to her. Not even the thought of being tied to one of the richest families in Texas is enough to make him want to stay.
SO yes, I don't think everyone will like this. The whole thing feels a bit sordid, but in a way that I think exploitation fans will kind of love. I couldn't put the book down, honestly. The different narrative voices are interesting, at times very funny, and awful, all at once. There is casual sexism and even casual racism, but the former comes mostly from our grumpy California cop and his pounding head, and the latter from the daughter of a Texas oil baron who pointedly looks down on everyone as being beneath her and her family. Willeford himself seems like he might be a little down on the state of Texas, at one point suggesting the place is "mean and full of hate". Wonder what kind of experiences he had there for real? Then again, our real troublemakers in this book all come from out of state.
December 29, 2018
Not Willeford's first published novel - it was published in 1961 under a pseudonym - but a 1952 manuscript suggests it may have been the first novel he wrote. The plotting is something else; a back and forth prize fight. Just as one character gets the upper hand, blamo! And now another character is driving things. So an excellent, high-energy, constantly shifting story line about a kidnapping and the hunt for the kidnappers. Where this book got a bit annoying for me was with the also constantly shifting first-person narrators. Seems a pretty common narrative device for the 1950s and early 1960s pulps. Guess at the pace these books were being cranked out the authors needed to mix things up to keep it interesting. It's a pretty crappy narrative strategy even when done well and an even worse strategy when done poorly. Third-person omniscient can do it all, and by using free-indirect discourse the language can be made to sound like the characters, and the dialogue can always be in each character's voice, so, first-person multiple? Not the way to go. Willeford here also narrates some of the characters with semi-literate quasi-dialect language, and that is just bad and annoying. So a good plot ruined by poorly executed shifting first-person narratives. Oh, and the cover is completely misleading - she doesn't use the whip, her father does. Big-time party foul!
March 15, 2026
I have been reading early Charles Willeford novels and trying to do it chronologically. This is my 5th and I have enjoyed them all. Some people have called this noir fiction but I don't think it actually his. There are dark moments and disturbing acts of violence but the inevitable bad outcomes are only for the kidnappers themselves. It is a great example of southern based crime/mystery fiction. Some people didn't like the use of a different narrator for each chapter but I liked it here. There are some that think you shouldn't use dialect but I found it worked well here. It's interesting that many have commented on the inaccuracy of the cover showing a woman with a whip but although it is technically wrong it does give insight into the character of Kay. I found it to be one of those fast moving novels that you have trouble finding a place to stop so you can eat dinner or go to bed.
There seems to be some back story that I don't really know much about concerning the book being published with W. Franklin Sanders as the author. It's unclear if Willeford co-wrote the story with Sanders, or used Sanders as a pseudonym.
There seems to be some back story that I don't really know much about concerning the book being published with W. Franklin Sanders as the author. It's unclear if Willeford co-wrote the story with Sanders, or used Sanders as a pseudonym.
October 24, 2008
See my review of "The Whip Hand" by 'W.Franklin Sanders'.
I just re-read it after getting it back from a couple of friends I loaned it to.
I have two original Gold Medal copies and the Blackmask repro edition too. The Blackmask is lousy with typos. Looks like they scanned it from the Gold Medal and never corrected the scanning errors. Lame job, but still a great read!
I just re-read it after getting it back from a couple of friends I loaned it to.
I have two original Gold Medal copies and the Blackmask repro edition too. The Blackmask is lousy with typos. Looks like they scanned it from the Gold Medal and never corrected the scanning errors. Lame job, but still a great read!
August 27, 2012
loved this story! what I enjoyed most is the way every chapter was told through the eyes of each character, yet stayed as a continuous non-stop story ...
a keep u on the edge of ur seat pace, characters were believable and his style of writing, phenomenal!
a keep u on the edge of ur seat pace, characters were believable and his style of writing, phenomenal!
January 12, 2008
amazing resurrected early Willeford
April 27, 2023
"...like a..." | the Willeford similes
When she sniffled her mouth would shimmy like a fishin’ cork with a perch too lil’to git caught a-tryin’ to tug the worm off'n the hook.
When I seen him I wasn’t happy no more. Ever’thing come back to me like a mule kickin’ you in the stomach.
I taken a quick look behind an’ seen the room clerk wasn’t lookin’ an’ I hit that gal, hard, in the stummick. The air went outta her like a engine coughin’ jes’ as it runs outta gas.
Him an’ the bed smelt like a moonshine dump with the still runnin’ wide open. You coulda slapped likker outta the air with a paddle, it was so strong.
I cain’t let you outta my sight fer five minutes ‘thout you blabbin’ ever’thing to somebody. I cain’t watch you ever minute like a kid playin’ with a straight razor. You got no bizness loose in a place like Big D.
Mostly what I ’member ’bout him is he kept a-grinnin’ at me like a dam’ skunk eatin’ out of a hairbrush.
He looked a little under the weather. His face was pasty white with sprinkled-paprika cheeks, and his eyes were two blood-covered lemon drops. Like he might have been celebrating his recent financial success with bottled elation.
He was a-blinkin’ at me like an old owl in the sunshine. Like his eyes was hurtin’ bad as mine with the mustard in ’em.
Donald finally choked off his screams and started trying to plead with Dad. His eyes, streaming big tears, begged for mercy. His tongue tried to push words through his sobs without the help of his lip, and crimson bubbles built up and burst like atomizer spray.
Crack! Dad’s whip crashed through the air again—and this time I did feel just a little sick.
The whip went into the flesh under the kid’s left eye and tore a gaping, mushy hole. The boy’s eyeball was torn out and hanging by strands of skin, laying on his cheekbone with blood washing over it. Donald half-stood with an animal-like scream, then fell back on his chair in a dead faint.
I taken a-holt of his ear an’ twisted him up to his feet, him a-squawkin’ like a stubborn ol settin’ hen pushed offa her nest.
He went down like a poleaxed steer in a slaughter chute.
The headache remained constant, like a bride of three days.
I must have made a picture. Somewhat more than two hundred pounds of beef with a white bandage around the top of my head like a turban, sticking out of a red, midget car. Oh, well.
We pulled up behind a police car parked in front and the crowd turned, gave us a thorough once-over and started arguing about who we were. They looked like a flock of sheep who didn’t know if they were getting a ram or a goat.
Tears was rollin’ down my face an’ my heart was achin’ like a sore tooth
She turned an’ seen the gun. She let out a mousy squeak an’ dropped on the floor like a bundle o’ rags.
“Where'd you get the money?”
I pulled my fist back to bury it in the same spot. But he held his hand up to signal he’d tell me when he got his breath. I waited one more minute and he was breathing easy enough to get words out.
“What money?” he croaked.
I shoved the first two fingers of my right hand into his big nose and pushed viciously upward. Yellow eyes were swim- ming in tears as he backed up under the pressure of the stiff fingers reaching through his head for his brain.
He backed into the plate glass window and was stopped short.
“Where’d you get the money?”
I jerked the fingers out of his nose and the way he groaned and grabbed for it they must have hurt as bad coming out as going in. I wiped my fingers on the lapels of his coat. His nose was bleeding nicely.
“It’s ransom money,” he said.
He spit it out along with a little blood and seemed to be pretty bitter about the position he was in.
“Don’t put yore fingers in my nose no more, Mister—that hurts!”
“Interesting. I know a few tricks that hurt worse, too. If you don’t explain in full about the money I'll begin showing you a few.”
I pretended to reach for him again and he was panic stricken. He blurted out the wildest tale I ever heard—and I’ve listened to a lot of mad fairy stories in the department in L.A. But this yarn was just fantastic enough to have a ring of truth.
August 7, 2018
Charles Willeford, apparently writing as W. Franklin Sanders, published “Whip Hand” in 1961 (although it was probably written in the early 1950s). The book is an excellent example of the classic noir genre and handles the elements in a unique way. Some sources suggest the book was written by both Charles Willeford and W. Franklin Sanders. But I came up blank finding a trace of the second author and many believe this is the work of Willeford alone.
There are 25 chapters, each written from the point of view of one eight characters. Some characters narrate just one, and others narrate several chapters. The author masterfully develops these characters to varying extents, and brilliantly uses voice and dialogue, colorful language, and clever metaphors. Brutal violence and a series of murders drive the novel’s plot. There is more than a suggestion of sex, powerful sociopathic behavior, and steady suspense as the novel provides the reader with surprise after surprise.
The protagonist, Bill Brown, a former police officer, fleas to Dallas which becomes the setting of this strange and compelling tale which originates at the Texas State Fair. Brown unwittingly becomes involved in a kidnapping and murder case. At one point, while both investigating and being investigated, he tells a version to the Dallas police Lieutenant leading the official investigation, and the cop’s impression is: “An absorbing yarn that didn’t touch my own theory at either end or in the middle. The trouble was it was just impossible and involved enough to have some truth woven in among the fantasy. A pay your money and take your choice kind of story.” That is exactly the impression forced on the reader. The reader must pay their money and take their choice. Whatever choice that is, this is a great story.
There are 25 chapters, each written from the point of view of one eight characters. Some characters narrate just one, and others narrate several chapters. The author masterfully develops these characters to varying extents, and brilliantly uses voice and dialogue, colorful language, and clever metaphors. Brutal violence and a series of murders drive the novel’s plot. There is more than a suggestion of sex, powerful sociopathic behavior, and steady suspense as the novel provides the reader with surprise after surprise.
The protagonist, Bill Brown, a former police officer, fleas to Dallas which becomes the setting of this strange and compelling tale which originates at the Texas State Fair. Brown unwittingly becomes involved in a kidnapping and murder case. At one point, while both investigating and being investigated, he tells a version to the Dallas police Lieutenant leading the official investigation, and the cop’s impression is: “An absorbing yarn that didn’t touch my own theory at either end or in the middle. The trouble was it was just impossible and involved enough to have some truth woven in among the fantasy. A pay your money and take your choice kind of story.” That is exactly the impression forced on the reader. The reader must pay their money and take their choice. Whatever choice that is, this is a great story.
September 2, 2022
Whipped through Whip Hand by W. Franklin Sanders, aka Charles Willeford. Curious about his choice of pen name? Each chapter delivered by a different character provides an inside and outside look at the activities unfolding. You’ve got Junior, Donald, El and Leona, the Okies from … you got Bill Brown, aka hero? also on the lam, brother Ed back home in LA, and Texas cattle & oil $ Dixon family dad & Kay and poor little Maggie, the homicide lt. trying to catch the perps and Bill as well.
Junior is a classic Willeford sociopath, Donald his likable unfortunate brother, El a true Okie rube, and Leona, bless her little heart full of love for Junior. Bill is your flawed cop, good & bad, but he’s not evil. Takes a licking, but keeps on ticking. Lucky to escape the attractions of Kay & $$ and gets out of Dallas.
But 1st Bill, welcome to Dallas “ stepped from the bus and dripped my way into the station, trying to get a decent breath of air from the hanging mass of humidity” let the hot times begin…
Junior is a classic Willeford sociopath, Donald his likable unfortunate brother, El a true Okie rube, and Leona, bless her little heart full of love for Junior. Bill is your flawed cop, good & bad, but he’s not evil. Takes a licking, but keeps on ticking. Lucky to escape the attractions of Kay & $$ and gets out of Dallas.
But 1st Bill, welcome to Dallas “ stepped from the bus and dripped my way into the station, trying to get a decent breath of air from the hanging mass of humidity” let the hot times begin…
April 11, 2023
A violent hardbitten pulp crime novel set in Dallas circa 1961, only a couple of years before Kennedy was shot to death there. The narrative is action packed and Willeford keeps it moving at an even faster pace by alternating first person narratives among the various characters. Although the author uses many genre devices, the book is much better written than one would expect. It's also agreeably free of any false sentimentality.
November 20, 2019
Sometimes, one just needs a spot of pulp reading. So, I found Charles Willeford...somewhere. He didn't disappoint.
So, Bill Brown, is a cop in LA, who appears to have had some dealings with shady characters at one time or another. Things get hot and "it is suggested" that he might be better off were he to disappear. So, he heads off to Dallas, Texas. At the bus station in Dallas he sees a seedy character come in with a very nice suitcase, much too nice for the guy carrying it. Brown decides to "help" the guy tuck his suit case away in a locker. Well, he pulls the old hidden key trick on the guy. Later, he retrieves the case himself and finds it full of money, some five grand in neat stacks of bills of one kind and another.
So, where did the seedy guy get the money? Well, this novel is written from the perspective of the various characters participating in the action. One chapter has Bill Brown's perspective on what's happening around him. The next might be from the perspective of Junior Knowles, or his brother, Donald, or their associate Elsworth (El) Mercer (the seedy guy).
It seems that the trio of thugs, Junior, Donald, and El, have kidnapped a rich man's young daughter, Mary Ann Dixon. The rich man complies with the ransom request and throws a suitcase full of cash, $15,000, to the side of a lonely road. The thugs, of course, don't return Mary Ann. Rather they murder her and leave her in a car by the side of the road.
Well, somehow, the cops find that Bill Brown has a suitcase full of cash and they begin stalking him for the murder of Mary Ann. So, Bill Brown has to try to track down the thugs before the cops get him. Along the way, he takes up with Mary Ann's older sister, Kate.
Well, it's pulp, but not half-bad pulp. What more could one want?
So, Bill Brown, is a cop in LA, who appears to have had some dealings with shady characters at one time or another. Things get hot and "it is suggested" that he might be better off were he to disappear. So, he heads off to Dallas, Texas. At the bus station in Dallas he sees a seedy character come in with a very nice suitcase, much too nice for the guy carrying it. Brown decides to "help" the guy tuck his suit case away in a locker. Well, he pulls the old hidden key trick on the guy. Later, he retrieves the case himself and finds it full of money, some five grand in neat stacks of bills of one kind and another.
So, where did the seedy guy get the money? Well, this novel is written from the perspective of the various characters participating in the action. One chapter has Bill Brown's perspective on what's happening around him. The next might be from the perspective of Junior Knowles, or his brother, Donald, or their associate Elsworth (El) Mercer (the seedy guy).
It seems that the trio of thugs, Junior, Donald, and El, have kidnapped a rich man's young daughter, Mary Ann Dixon. The rich man complies with the ransom request and throws a suitcase full of cash, $15,000, to the side of a lonely road. The thugs, of course, don't return Mary Ann. Rather they murder her and leave her in a car by the side of the road.
Well, somehow, the cops find that Bill Brown has a suitcase full of cash and they begin stalking him for the murder of Mary Ann. So, Bill Brown has to try to track down the thugs before the cops get him. Along the way, he takes up with Mary Ann's older sister, Kate.
Well, it's pulp, but not half-bad pulp. What more could one want?
October 4, 2016
This is pulp, it reads like pulp, the story is pulp, and the considerably difference here is that the characters are dirt-farm poor pulp.
Distinctions abound as each of these characters has their own point-of-view chapter (or several). Further, their dialect is utterly dirt farmer.
What makes pulp? The scope of their aspirations. Scope is not the same as scale. In terms of scale, pulp characters are going to go for the whole enchilada. Scope reveals that the enchilada is all they plan for. If they are looking for a $1000 bank-roll, in very little time it lands in their lap.
Then what? Scale of aspiration is met, and a world of hurt follows because there isn't enough zeros in $1000 to pay for the mistakes they made getting it.
"Whip Hand" accomplishes the display of this tragic fault across every character.
Charles Willeford has written an existential pulp comedy.
Distinctions abound as each of these characters has their own point-of-view chapter (or several). Further, their dialect is utterly dirt farmer.
What makes pulp? The scope of their aspirations. Scope is not the same as scale. In terms of scale, pulp characters are going to go for the whole enchilada. Scope reveals that the enchilada is all they plan for. If they are looking for a $1000 bank-roll, in very little time it lands in their lap.
Then what? Scale of aspiration is met, and a world of hurt follows because there isn't enough zeros in $1000 to pay for the mistakes they made getting it.
"Whip Hand" accomplishes the display of this tragic fault across every character.
Charles Willeford has written an existential pulp comedy.
March 17, 2015
When LA Cop Bill Brown goes on the run from The Syndicate he gets mixed up with a trio of inept but deadly kidnappers in Dallas. Mistakenly wanted for the murder of the kidnapped little girl Brown tries to round up the killers while dodging the local Dallas cops. The Whip Hand (aka Deliver Me from Dallas!) is a sometimes brutal slice of noir from author Charles Willeford told from multiple points of view, each character flawed and wicked in some way. I really enjoyed Wild Wives by the same author and this novel is equally gripping if you like hard boiled noir.
July 16, 2017
This has been described as a lost classic of noir crime fiction. That accurately sums up this novel and there is an interesting back story about how it was published under another author's name, went out of print, and decades later someone found the manuscript and discovered the actual author was Charles Willeford. Willeford has a number of fans and one produced a volume biography.
The story, characters, etc. are on the crude side, think in terms of Mike Hammer. Fans of the subgenre may like this.
The story, characters, etc. are on the crude side, think in terms of Mike Hammer. Fans of the subgenre may like this.
January 27, 2016
Fast paced. The story moves along at a quick clip as each chapter shifts focus to different characters in the narrative. Sometimes the phonetic language some of the characters is a bit distracting but only at first. Willeford manages to find different voices for all the characters as they carry their respective chapters. Not much in ways of plot, its pretty straightforward, but where it shines in its unique character study.
February 11, 2014
This book was ablaze from me turning the pages so fast. Bloody, grim pulp while switching character perspective every chapter.
I would recommend this if you like your violence fairly straight-forward and your characters tough.
I would recommend this if you like your violence fairly straight-forward and your characters tough.
November 10, 2019
Finished this several days ago but haven't had time to update about it!
I was digging the noir vibe to this book, but tbh the plot felt incredibly messy, with too many side characters (not to mention the heavily written out accents and not surprising but nevertheless tasteless racist phrases).
I was digging the noir vibe to this book, but tbh the plot felt incredibly messy, with too many side characters (not to mention the heavily written out accents and not surprising but nevertheless tasteless racist phrases).
January 21, 2014
I thoroughly enjoyed this fine example of pulp fiction. The adventure started on the first page and took me for a ride on a curvaceous tale with not a chance to catch my breath.
July 25, 2015
It's an amazing dark hard boiled crime story with an equally amazing cover. And I believe is legally available for free out there somewhere.
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