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Run For The Money
He found a fortune in stolen bills, but the mob wanted it back. They gave him a deadly run for the money.Show More Show Less
157 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
About the author
Robert Colby
73 books2 followersAmerican novelist and crime thriller paperback genre and short story writer. Colby wrote novels for a number of the paperback houses including Gold Medal, which published his most praised novel, The Captain Must Die. He was also a prolific contributor of short stories to Alfred Hitchcock and Mike Shayne's mystery magazines. Many of these have gathered into two published collections of his stories. Colby also wrote a non-fiction true crime book, The California Crime Book, and co-authored a 'Nick Carter' book, The Death's Head Conspiracy, with Gary Brandner. Author Ed Gorman believed "Robert Colby was one of the best of the paperback original writers".
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 22, 2026
In classic crime fiction, it’s always a bag or suitcase or package filled with money that some poor innocent has stumbled on, thinks he’s got it made, and the scores of bad dudes on his trail, trying to get back what they see as their hard-earned cash.
Barry Lunsford is that shlub who thinks he can fool the criminal class and get out of the damn rat race he barely got into to begin with. “He couldn’t move up in the system to some plateau where he ceased to merely exist and began to live in a state of comparative luxury. He knew why. It was simple. He was fundamentally incapable of paying the price. To climb in the ordinary drab business, you had to take a gigantic interest in dry details that were a colossal bore. Or you had to pretend to. And he couldn’t do either. You had to play patsy with some awful slobs who had once been puppets, too, but, having arrived, now became martinets.”
Barry doesn’t come into this thing until chapter three and a full month after the original crime, but he spies a bag in the bushes while stuck at a checkpoint and, when he realizes he’s got $300,000 smackeroos, he doesn’t stop to think or to bring the bag to the authorities. Rather, he tells his boss to shove it and heads out to the good life on the West Coast where he gets a sleek convertible and falls for a hot chick.
What he forgets though is that for that kind of dough the kind of people he’s on the run from are never going to give up and when they catch up with him, there’s going to be a kind of hell to pay Barry couldn’t conceive of even in his worst nightmares.
Barry is a cad and doesn’t deserve the money or the trouble, but Colby does a great job of humanizing Barry and getting you as the reader to feel his tension, his fear, and his regrets.
Barry Lunsford is that shlub who thinks he can fool the criminal class and get out of the damn rat race he barely got into to begin with. “He couldn’t move up in the system to some plateau where he ceased to merely exist and began to live in a state of comparative luxury. He knew why. It was simple. He was fundamentally incapable of paying the price. To climb in the ordinary drab business, you had to take a gigantic interest in dry details that were a colossal bore. Or you had to pretend to. And he couldn’t do either. You had to play patsy with some awful slobs who had once been puppets, too, but, having arrived, now became martinets.”
Barry doesn’t come into this thing until chapter three and a full month after the original crime, but he spies a bag in the bushes while stuck at a checkpoint and, when he realizes he’s got $300,000 smackeroos, he doesn’t stop to think or to bring the bag to the authorities. Rather, he tells his boss to shove it and heads out to the good life on the West Coast where he gets a sleek convertible and falls for a hot chick.
What he forgets though is that for that kind of dough the kind of people he’s on the run from are never going to give up and when they catch up with him, there’s going to be a kind of hell to pay Barry couldn’t conceive of even in his worst nightmares.
Barry is a cad and doesn’t deserve the money or the trouble, but Colby does a great job of humanizing Barry and getting you as the reader to feel his tension, his fear, and his regrets.
October 14, 2024
Run for the Money by #RobertColby is a pretty run-of-the-mill tale (man finds $300k in a bag on the side of the road, thinks his problems are solved, guess again), and a little too pat when it comes to character placement at just the right moments, but it’s still a fun story with plenty of twists and turns. Finished it in two sittings, so while it was a little disappointing for me, there was obviously enough there to keep me flipping pages.
If you’re new to Colby, I would recommend The Captain Must Die as his best work.
If you’re new to Colby, I would recommend The Captain Must Die as his best work.
November 8, 2019
This book came as a bit of surprise. I enjoyed the writing style and it had the feel of a Hard Case Crime novel. I'll read some more of Robert Colby.
April 22, 2025
"Iris had made him feel that, by not turning over the money to the police, he might be covering a crime. He was dishonest ,even lawless. Absurd. The kind of righteous hypocrisy they sold children to scare them into robot obedience to society."
Love that one. And here's another:
"People want you to work because THEY have to work. A guy who has money is a dope if he cares what anyone thinks."
These beautiful sentiments made me think of the more cynical passages of Gil Brewer. Or Lionel White. I love those guys. And now I'm warming up to Robert Colby. His novel MURDER MISTRESS was a great crime novel, and so was this.
From the first few words, "The armored car rolled south on route one" I knew I picked a good one. The bad guys make an early appearance and then don't show up for a little while later, at which point our main character Barry lunsford, who stumbles on stolen loot after a robbery, along with his girl, are in deep shit. You see, the bad guys (whose identities surprised me) are hardened pros, who are not fucking around. Barry has to decide how hard he's willing to play for the money, and as it turns out, he does have some nerve, and plenty of hate built up inside. There were a few twists i didn't see coming and I didn't quite expect the level of violence either. It was all in service of a damn good crime novel, and I will definitely be picking up more of Robert Colby's stuff
Love that one. And here's another:
"People want you to work because THEY have to work. A guy who has money is a dope if he cares what anyone thinks."
These beautiful sentiments made me think of the more cynical passages of Gil Brewer. Or Lionel White. I love those guys. And now I'm warming up to Robert Colby. His novel MURDER MISTRESS was a great crime novel, and so was this.
From the first few words, "The armored car rolled south on route one" I knew I picked a good one. The bad guys make an early appearance and then don't show up for a little while later, at which point our main character Barry lunsford, who stumbles on stolen loot after a robbery, along with his girl, are in deep shit. You see, the bad guys (whose identities surprised me) are hardened pros, who are not fucking around. Barry has to decide how hard he's willing to play for the money, and as it turns out, he does have some nerve, and plenty of hate built up inside. There were a few twists i didn't see coming and I didn't quite expect the level of violence either. It was all in service of a damn good crime novel, and I will definitely be picking up more of Robert Colby's stuff
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews