The Cheat

by Don Tracy

"Johnny Thompson" (born Benjamin S. Neischtadt) finds that being a small time prize fighter interferes with regular eating, so he gets a job as guard on an armored truck. His broken nose, scar on left jaw, and a broken knuckle do not enhance his charms for the fair sex, but this does not keep him from courting Anna, a blonde with lascivious eyes and seductive curves. However, Johnny is not "in the dough" and Anna passes him up for Slim.
Trapped into staging a fake hold up, Johnny double crosses Slim and kills him, in this way becoming a hero and also taking possesion of Anna. But double crossing can be worked both ways, and in the end fate catches up...

Genres: Noir, Fiction

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1934

About the author

Donald Fiske Tracy aka Barnaby Ross, Roger Fuller.

Don Tracy, was born in New Britain, Connecticut. He worked as a reporter for local newspapers in New Brittain from 1926-1928, then as editor of Radio News in New York from 1928-1934. In 1934, his first novel, All Sold!, and his second novel, Flash, were published. After World War II, he also taught summer courses at Syracuse University from 1955-1960, and become fairly well known for his historical novels, without abandoning the crime novel. Toward the end of his life, he met the president of the New Life Foundation, an anti-alcohol league. Under the pseudonym "Roger Fuller", he wrote novelizations of the films The Sign Of The Pagan (1954) and the television series The Defenders (1964, 1965), The Fugitive and Peyton Place. He died in Florida after a battle with cancer in 1976.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don Tracy's Criss-Cross was published the same year as James M. Cain's debut novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice. If Criss-Cross had been written two decades later, it would have fit easily into the Gold Medal line. Narrator Johnny Thompson, an ex-boxer who works as a guard for the Laird Armored Car Agency, wants nothing more than the love of femme fatale Anna Krebak, who dates Johnny when he has money, ignores Johnny when he is broke, and makes no effort to hide her desires and motivations: money, money, money. Johnny is no fool--he sees Anna for what she is--but he is still a fool--he cannot leave Anna well enough alone. Anna soon marries an acquaintance of Johnny's, a local hood who has money enough to keep her satisfied, and when the hood becomes ambitious for a big score, his thoughts turn, naturally, to Johnny and the Laird Armored Car Agency. The first half of Criss-Cross is a bit leisurely in pacing, but its second half is strong. Especially worth reading for those interested in the early development of noir.

[Creolecat · Rating 3 out of 5]

The film is so much better and completely different from the book - thank goodness.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don Tracy's second novelCriss-Cross is about as hard-boiled as they come. It gets my vote for one of the best novels of the 1930s, right up there with the books by James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

Tracy's use of the contemporary vernacular gives it a particularly period-feel, which, just a few decades ago would have made it seem dated.

The story is about Johnny, an ex-prizefighter whose glory days are past and is forced to take a job as an armored car guard. When Johnny realizes the girl he loves is simultaneously dating a hood and has married him unexpectedly, he suspects the hood named Slim has ulterior motives when making overtures towards friendship afterward.

[Lucynka · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hunted this down because I watched the 1949 film adaptation and got curious about the source material. If it wasn’t for that connection, I probably would have quit about twenty pages in. Major differences from the film include approximately 1000% more boxing and ethnic slurs/stereotyping.

Main character Johnny is phenomenally unsympathetic and misogynistic. Love-interest Anna is a cardboard cut-out of a gold-digging serial cheater, with absolutely no depth or development whatsoever. (I have no idea why Johnny’s so hung up on her, aside from the fact that she’s apparently super hot, and he’s a weak bitch who can consistently be led around by his dick.) Ostensible antagonist Slim is actually the most likeable of the bunch, despite being a hood, but he dies about two-thirds of the way through, boo. The book became something of a hate-read for me after that, as I mostly kept going just in the hope that Johnny, too, would die.

In addition to all that, the book suffers from rough pacing (the first half is damn near interminably slow) and an often-beige writing style (not minimalist and punchy, just beige—“I did this, then I did this other thing, then I went to this place”—etc.). The last fifty or so pages, especially, turn into an anticlimactic tale of Desk Jockey Johnny Working His Way Up the Corporate Ladder. It’s 241 pages, but probably would have worked a lot better if Tracy had cut it down to about 180.

Special mention goes to the way Tracy-as-Johnny hilariously describes Anna’s breasts as “long” and “pointed,” as if this is somehow sexy or even makes anatomical sense, lolololol.

Anyway, two stars because the prose made for a quick read (if often a boring one), and I did end up finishing it, so. It’s technically an example of classic literary crime/noir, but not a particularly enjoyable one, nor even one you merely appreciate on an artistic level.

[Carles · Rating 3 out of 5]

No era bona per a ell. Potser per a ningú.
Sagaç per els negocis, tan viu, perspicaç... I mira.
Una història d’obnubilació, infidelitat, traïció i venjança.
Trama simple, m’ha semblat ben escrita i amb sorpreses argumentals.
M’ha agradat.