The Asphalt Jungle

by W.R. Burnett

A gripping tale of the planning and execution of a jewellery store heist in a dark and corrupt Midwestern metropolis. Set amid a seedy urban wasteland of crooks, killers and con-artists, the members of the gang are steadily undone by their personal obsessions (teenage girls and mistresses, friendships and blood ties), double-crossing and fate.

Genres: Fiction, Noir, Crime, Mystery, Classics, Thriller, Novels

271 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

William Riley "W. R." Burnett was an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for the crime novel Little Caesar, the film adaptation of which is considered the first of the classic American gangster movies. Burnett was born in Springfield, Ohio. He left his civil service job there to move to Chicago when he was 28, by which time he had written over 100 short stories and five novels, all unpublished.

Burnett kept busy, producing a novel or more a year and turning most into screenplays (some as many as three times). Thematically Burnett was similar to Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain but his contrasting of the corruption and corrosion of the city with the better life his characters yearned for, represented by the paradise of the pastoral, was fresh and original. He portrayed characters who, for one reason or another, fell into a life of crime. Once sucked into this life they were unable to climb out. They typically get one last shot at salvation but the oppressive system closes in and denies redemption.

Burnett's characters exist in a world of twilight morality — virtue can come from gangsters and criminals, malice from guardians and protectors. Above all his characters are human and this could be their undoing.

Burnett worked with many of the greats in acting and directing, including Raoul Walsh, John Huston, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray, Douglas Sirk, Michael Cimino, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Paul Muni, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood.

He received an Oscar nomination for his script for "Wake Island" (1942) and a Writers Guild nomination for his script for "The Great Escape". In addition to his film work he also wrote scripts for television and radio.

On his death in 1982, in Santa Monica, California,Burnett was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California

Reviews

[Francesc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una buena historia. Las descripciones son de un gran nivel. Los personajes están muy bien definidos.
Me ha faltado un poco de ritmo.

A good story. The descriptions are of a high level. The characters are very well defined.
I've missed a little rhythm.

[Algernon · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Well." said Riemenschneider, "we need a top-notch driver – in case of trouble. We need an expert toolman. And then, as always – sad to say – we need a hooligan."

Heist stories are a dime a dozen. A lot of authors and film-makers have tried their hand at them, and robberies are about as popular today as they were in the heydays of the pulp fiction. Yet W R Burnett stands in a class of his own with this account of a daring heist at a jeweler shop in a big, unnamed Mid Western city. What is it that makes his tale feel both classical and modern? The tragic vibe that we associate with the original noir stories? Or the use of fast, rotating POV narration instead of first person hardboiled that I believe is well ahead of its time? It's a combination of factors, but they key ingredient can be found probably in the title: no matter how well drawn are the players in this charade with Fate, the main character in the novel is the city itself.

River Boulevard, wide as as a plaza and with its parkways and arched, orange street lights stretching off into the misty horizon in diminishing perspective, was as deserted as if a plague had swept the streets clean. The traffic lights changed with automatic precision, but there were no cars to heed or disobey them. Far down the boulevard, in the supper-club section of the city, elaborately glittering neon signs flashed off and on to emptiness. The night city, like a wound-up toy, went about its business with mechanical efficiency, regardless of man.

Seen mostly at night time, the city is a living entity, remorseless and indifferent to the struggles of the puny humans who think they can control their own destiny. Once they are swallowed by the asphalt jungle they become prey, often crushed by the soulless gears of its administration or by the savagery of its hooligans. Hooligans who can often be disguised as high ranking police, lawyers or politicians.

Too many of these fellows are drug addicts. They get greedy and scream about the take after it's made. Or they hound you later, claim you've cheated them. They are a no-good lot or they wouldn't be hooligans. Violence is a form of stupidity, and it's all they know.

Herr Doktor Riemenschneider, the brains behind the heist, is literal in his appraisal of the hardman he needs, but his audience is quick to expand the definition to all the crooks thirsty for power in the city. this is his conversation with high-flying lawyer Emmerich, who remarks that most of his clients are the same

The actual hooligan is Dix, a middle-aged gambling addict with a short temper and an inflated opinion of his honor, despite battery and armed hold-ups being his main source of income. Dix (from Dixie) is a nickname given to him because of his Southern accent and of his easily bruised ego. He starts as a side character, but as the events unfold he becomes the avatar of alienation, of what the jungle does to a man. it is not a coincidence that the novel and the movie adaptation both end with him outside the asphalt labyrinth Ultimately all he wants to do is to escape, to go back to a lost garden of Eden – as his childhood spent on the family farm appears in retrospect.

He threw a worried glance at the bedroom window, beyond which sprawled the huge city with its cliff-like buildings and its acres of hard cement. For a brief moment he felt a sort of terror – the terror of the exile abandoned to his fate far from home.

This showing of the human side of a hardened criminal, seasoned with a doomed romantic interest, is another reason I consider the novel a modern one, one not satisfied with the cheap thrills of the daring robbery or with black & white separation between cops and robbers, but more concerned with the roots of the problem.

"It gives you the jimmies sometimes looking at it like this," said Cobby, referring to the spread-out city. "You can really see how big it is, and you get to thinking about all the thousands of poor bastards conniving, fighting, biting, and scratching to make a living."

Burnett is a hardboiled writer, but he is also a romantic who wants to find some hope of escaping the jungle, and a deft hand at sketching compelling characters in just a few paragraphs. All his characters are memorable and credible – there is not one that doesn't stand out, even if they have just one scene or two in the economy of the novel. Here's an example of Doll, the woman who fell in love with Dix, despite being regularly abused by him.

The rough side of life was no mystery to her – she'd seen hardly anything else, as she'd been on her own for over twenty years; but she managed to keep herself aloof from the sordid fatalism of her associates, and she had fought a constant, tough, but inconclusive battle against the long, easy slide down into the mire.

I mentioned earlier that most of the characters want to escape the jungle. One dreams of nubile girls in Mexico City, another of a new start in a foreign country, a young bimbo dreams of the sunny beaches of Florida, one lingers in bed all day with medication and cheap novels, and Dix yearns for the green hills of Kentucky. This being a classic pulp and not a modern blockbuster with A-list actors, most of them will not escape with the loot. The solution instead is presented by the two characters from the opening chapter: the cynical reporter Lou Farbstein and the slightly naive new Commissioner Theo J Hardy. These two refuse to accept defeat in the face of institutionalized corruption and still believe the system can be saved from within, not by running away from the jungle.

The worst police force in the world is better than no police force?

Whether this statement is still valid today is something each of us has to reflect (and act) upon.

>>><<<>>><<<

After reading the book, I re-watched the John Houston movie, after about three decades of not being over impressed by it. With the original story fresh in mind, the movie becomes very close to a masterpiece also, with the main points about the city and alienation well made and with a stellar cast of characters. I recommend both.

[Tim Orfanos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Αν θέλει κάποιος να ξεκινήσει να διαβάζει αστυνομική λογοτεχνία με έντονα 'νουάρ' στοιχεία, καλό θα είναι να ξεκινήσει με το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο. Ο Burnett ψυχογραφεί με τέτοιο πειστικό τρόπο τους χαρακτήρες και τονίζει τη μοναδικότητά τους, ώστε ο αναγνώστης νιώθει την επίδραση των γεγονότων, ακόμα, και αρκετή ώρα, αφού έχει ολοκληρώσει την ανάγνωση.

Πέρα από αυτό, το συγκεκριμένο μυθιστόρημα αποτελεί καί μια πειστικότατη κοινωνική καταγραφή της μεταπολεμικής Αμερικής, μέσα από τη γλαφυρά στοιχειωτική ατμόσφαιρα μιας μεγαλούπολης, όπως το Σικάγο (1949). Πρόκειται, όντως, για ένα από τα πιο 'στρωτά' και ξεκάθαρα στη δομή της πλοκής 'νουάρ' μυθιστορήματα, όπου οι χαρακτήρες των ηρώων, ενώ διαφέρουν αρκετά στις αντιδράσεις και τα κίνητρα συμπεριφοράς, καταφέρνουν να οδηγήσουν το αναγνωστικό κοινό να ενδιαφερθεί για την κατάληξη του καθενός ξεχωριστά, όσο και να συμπάσχει με τους περισσότερους από αυτούς.

Ο Τζον Χιούστον μετέφερε στην μεγάλη οθόνη το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο, χωρίς σχεδόν να 'πειράξει' καθόλου την πλοκή της ιστορίας, επιτυγχάνοντας πλέον στις μέρες μας να θεωρείται από τα κλασικότερα φιλμ 'νουάρ'του παγκόσμιου κινηματογράφου. Μην ξεχάσουμε και την μικρή αλλά ουσιαστική συμβολή της πρωτοεμφανιζόμενης Μέριλυν Μονρόου σ'ένα ρόλο-κλειδί για την εξέλιξη της ιστορίας.

Μαζί με 'Το τέλος της διαδρομής', ενδεχομένως, να είναι από τα σημαντικότερα μυθιστορήματα του Μπερνέτ.

Βαθμολογία: 4,8/5 ή 9,6/10.

[Annetius · Rating 3 out of 5]

3-
Noir, τύπου κλέφτες κι αστυνόμοι,
όπου δεν τρελάθηκα από την αγωνία, δεν είναι το είδος λογοτεχνίας που θα μου ανάψει και θα μου κρατήσει το ενδιαφέρον, όπως και οι αντίστοιχες ταινίες. Οπότε ξεκινάμε από αυτό. Πιστεύω ότι χαντακώθηκε παταγωδώς μετά από την εμπειρία που είχα με τον Ζολά μόλις πριν από αυτό, θεωρώ ότι το έκαψα σχεδόν.
Είναι πολλά τα πούρα, Άρη, τα δε ουίσκια και η αντρίλα ξεχειλίζουν. Οι γυναίκες εμφανίζονται πάνσαχλες ωσάν μονοκύτταροι οργανισμοί και γενικώς δε λιμπίστηκα τίποτα από την μεταπολεμική Αμερική που να μου κεντρίσει το ενδιαφέρον.
Γι' αυτούς που αγαπούν το ειδος, μπορώ να αντιληφθώ την αξία του βιβλίου.
Προσωπικά, δεν έμπαινα.
*Η έκδοση από Μέδουσα τράτζικ.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insignificant little German doctor, just released from prison, makes contact with a friend of a prison associate, who he hopes can help him execute an audacious jewel robbery. No penny-ante theft this, but a million-dollar heist. Trouble is the fence the little German was hoping to use is no longer available and he needs a crew to help him carry out the theft. He needs a getaway driver, a thug for any rough stuff, a professional locksmith, someone to help finance the costs of the heist and, of course, a fence to replace the original fence. They find men to fill those roles, but a crooked lawyer who offers to finance the expenses and a fence for the jewels, strikes a false note with the little doctor. The doctor approaches the thug, whose help he’s enlisted for the job, to back him up should the lawyer try to double cross them.

As I was reading this story, I was struck by the author’s ability to evoke the grimness of the city the story is set in. It’s never named, other than being referred to as a “Midwestern City”, but it’s very anonymity, adds to the alienation readers sense is experienced by its citizens; law abiding and criminal alike. Corruption is rife, but in not giving a name to the city, the author is essentially saying that this could be any large city in the 1950’s.
In effect, the city is as much a character as those who inhabit it.

A dark, blustery night had settled down like a cowl over the huge, sprawling Midwestern City by the river. A mist-like rain blew between the tall buildings at intervals, wetting the streets and pavements and turning them into black, fun-house mirrors that reflected in grotesque distortions the street lights and neon signs.
The big downtown bridges arched off across the wide, black river into the void, the far shore blotted out by the misty rain; and gusts of wind, carrying stray newspapers, blew up the almost deserted boulevards, whistling faintly along the building fronts and moaning at the intersections. Empty surface cars and buses with misted windows, trundled slowly through the downtown section. Except for taxis and prowl cars, there was no traffic.
River Boulevard, wide as a plaza and with its parkways and arched, orange street lights stretching off into the misty horizon in diminishing perspective, was as deserted as if a plague had swept the streets clean. The traffic lights changed with automatic precision, but there were no cars to heed or disobey them. Far down the boulevard, in the supper-club section of the city, elaborately glittering neon signs flashed off and on to emptiness. The night city, like a wound-up toy, went about its business with mechanical efficiency, regardless of man.
And;
The scene of the brawl was soon left behind. Now the streets grew progressively more empty as they skirted the edge of the financial district; traffic and street lights were fewer; boulevards seemed to wind off darkly into no place; and high above towered the huge skyscrapers- floor upon floor upon floor of masonry, sheer-windowed cliffs showing not a single light. The narrow streets, cluttered with car tracks and flanked by tall buildings, were angular, artificial canyons, ugly, sinister, and deserted. Sounds of the night city failed to penetrate this area, and yet it did not seem asleep, but wakeful in a kind of dark, Gothic torpor.

I haven’t seen the movie of the same name, starring among others, Marilyn Monroe, but it’s now on my ever growing list. I recommend this novel to any fans of classic 50’s noir.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read, in a few sittings, spending time with the tough characters in this crime fiction, published in 1949. A bunch of guys pull off a major robbery and then the intensive manhunt gets underway. I like the characters and their dialogue. We have the good guy, Police Commissioner Hardy, who wants to crack down on crime. There's the criminal lawyer, Emmerich, ready to take the big gamble to get rich. There's Gus, a criminal loyal to the people he likes--and a cat lover. And the brutal Dix, the strong-arm, but sentimental deep inside, and Doll, the aging dive hostess, who only wants to escape her sordid life.
A classic crime caper as hard-boiled as you'd ever want.

[Φώτης Καραμπεσίνης · Rating 4 out of 5]

Εξαιρετικό δείγμα νουάρ και από τα καλύτερα του Burnett, από όσα έχω διαβάσει μέχρι στιγμής τουλάχιστον. Το μόνο μειονέκτημα-βασικό!- η έκδοση του Παρατηρητή που έχω, η οποία καταφέρνει να καταστρέψει πολλά σημεία του έργου. Αν μπορείτε, αποφύγετέ την! Κρίμα για την αξία του βιβλίου αυτού.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls · Rating 4 out of 5]

The heist plot is nothing special but the atmosphere of corruption and decay in the Rust Belt big city (Pittsburgh) is what makes this post-WWII noir crime novel stand out. Although it's somewhat disorienting and slow in the early stages, the pace picks up by the halfway point and the conclusion is satisfying. Characters are well developed and have satisfying arcs that are typical for the genre, but Burnett clearly has contempt for some of them which doesn't play well for the reader.

[Uhtred · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tragic reports and shocking images of these days related to the story of George Floyd, which made New York and other cities of the USA real asphalt jungles, made me think of this book and then I went to read it again after many years. I have to say that I hardly remembered it, but then reading it, some windows in the brain opened. The story is that of a robbery at a jewelry store, planned by a group led by "doctor" Erwin Riemenschneider, a man just out of jail, with his accomplices, that is the mechanic of Italian origins Louis, the hunchback bartender Gus, a country man named Dix, his girlfriend Doll and a bankrupt lawyer, Alonzo Emmerich. This strange gang decides to make a bank job that will fix them for the rest of their lives and in the end the job succeeds, but an unexpected betrayal will make everything go into tragedy. Asphalt jungle is a real noir classic and this title has impressed the minds of all of us so to define those urban contexts expected to be civilized and where instead the law of the jungle applies. The atmosphere is anxious, nocturnal, desperate, convulsive: the City emerges as the true protagonist, defined by everything inhuman in it, the crowding, the noises, the stinks, the violence. In this gray, inhuman, sprawling world, you cannot dream, there is no room to escape, even with your mind. The plot flows without twists or big surprises and what intrigues the reader is how the author was good at creating the relationships between the various characters, who stand out so well that they seem alive, with their failures, their illusions and after all, their solitude. They are losers, but they struggle to live, not just to stay afloat: each of them still has a little dream, someone a woman, someone a farm, someone a family. Together they work well and the bank job is successful, but each of them will come out badly. And the police, as in these days' real life, come out as pure unintelligent violence, a steamroller that only has to return its roadmap, flatten everything, bring everything back to a "normality" without purpose. If the underworld is one side of the coin, this stupid police is the other side of the same coin. The City, the asphalt jungle, becomes the metaphor of a cage that kills humanity and the imagination, with the harshness of the criminal world, the brutal violence of the police and the indifference of the rest of the world. The protagonists move in this context, each one looking for a personal redemption; everyone puts their part in the team game and the problem is that also the Fate does: it will unravel more and more intricate and inevitable situations, compromising the redemption of the protagonists and the happy ending of the book.

[D'Ailleurs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Αρχετυπικό noir μυθηστόρημα από τον Burnett, το οποίο ακροβατεί ανάμεσα στο αστυνομικό, το pulp και το μελόδραμα, χωρίς να γίνεται σαχλό. Μέτρια μετάφραση, θα μπορούσε να είχε γίνει αναθεώρηση στην ανατύπωση αλλά παρόλα αυτά ξεχωρίζει από το σωρό της κινηματογραφικής σύγχρονης αστυνομικής λογοτεχνίας. Κρίμα που δεν έχει μεταφραστεί το έργο του Burnett στην χώρα μας.

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

An author should be judged by how well he succeeds in what he sets out to do. Burnett set out to write a crime novel; he wrote one that grabs the reader’s attention and doesn’t let go. But it’s in the depth of his characterizations that he excels; nobody is one-dimensional. With Dix and Emmerich the exploration is particularly probing. In the beginning both men are shown in an uncompromisingly harsh light; their considerable flaws loom large. But over the course of the book they take on layers of complexity until, by the end, they’ve become people we can understand and pity. And then there’s Doll Pelky, a seemingly minor character. She clings to Dix: “She was crazy about this big tramp. Why – was no matter. She just was. If only he had a little kindness, a little understanding in his nature; not much, just a little.” This is a woman who has reached the end of the line, and that end is Dix. She had known only the rough side of life for thirty-five years, had been engaged in a “constant, tough, but inconclusive battle against the long, easy slide into the mire.” She had not taken on the “sordid fatalism” of the people around her. Doll has retained a core of decency. I was moved by her, and at the end I was left worrying about her. That feeling may best define Burnett’s accomplishment.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Burnett’s “The Asphalt Jungle” is probably best known as one of the earliest Marilyn Monroe movies. This jewelry store robbery is considered one of Huston’s best films and an important film noir. Marilyn’s role in the film and her character’s role in the film are minimal, but such are the ways of stardom.

“Asphalt Jungle” has much in common with Burnett’s earlier work, “High Sierra.” Both are jewelry heist capers. Both feature a lead character (although Asphalt is more of an ensemble novel) who just got out of prison and is ready for one last big score. Both feature a storyline where the fencing of the jewelry becomes impossible and the robberies do not go exactly as planned. In fact, in both novels, things fall apart when the robberies turn sour and everyone involved is on their own.

Nevertheless, Asphalt Jungle is not simply a re-hashing of High Sierra, but a top-notch work in its own right. Asphalt is set in an unnamed mid-western city, about a five mile drive from Cleveland, where the corrupt law enforcement is being prodded into action by a crack reporter/columnist.

The first character and the lead character introduced is Riemenschneider, also known as the Professor or the Doctor. He has just finished a stretch behind the walls with “Joe Cool,” who set him up with a job guaranteed to produce half a million in cool change. The job is a night-time robbery of jewelry store downtown which has not been held up in decades. Riemenschneider needs to put together a team and to get financing as well as a fence to parlay the goods into cold hard cash. Cobby is interested because “When the Herr Doktor talked big money, he wasn’t talking through his hat. He was a very, very big operator when he could manage to stay out of the clink. Bigger than Joe Cool even – and that was big enough.”

Cobby’s contact for money is Mr. Alonzo Emmerich, emminent attorney of the city, and the holder of monies for all kinds of things. Where things go bad though right off is that Emmerich is no longer as well-heeled as one might think from his fancy home and fancy wife. He has money owed him all over the place, but is considered such a soft touch that he cannot collect and is teetering on bankruptcy. He has hired a private detective to lean on his debtors, but nothing is coming in quickly and he has been advised to take the debtors to court, a lengthy process he does not have time for. Emmerich has got a house of cards and it will all fall apart if everyone knows his finances are shot to hell so he bluffs it out with Cobby and claims he will back Cobby if Cobby’s money is used and can arrange the quick cash for the jewelry so that Herr Doktor and company do not have to wait for the jewelry to be fenced across the midwest.

Emmerich also has a red-haired mistress, Angela, which is the Marilyn Monroe role. She was the kind of woman every man in the restaurant would eye. “And it was not only the flaming red hair: she was slenderly but voluptuously made; and there was something about her walk – something lazy, careless, and insolently assured – that it was impossible to ignore.”

The Doktor picks Dix Handley, a tall moody Southerner, to be his muscle. Dix, tough city boy though he appears, fantasizes about heading back to his family farm. “Doll” was a a tall, heavily made, and coarsely pretty woman, brunette by nature, but it had been dyed so many colors, it was now nothing in particular. She had spent much of her life on the rough side and, for whatever reason, decides she is going to stick it out with Dix no matter what happens. She sees something decent in him.

“Schemer” as Louis Bellini now lived a quiet suburban life with a wife Maria and a young infant son. He now worked as a troubleshooter for an appliance store, but had made money in other ways which he kept in various safety-deposit boxes, a remainder of a life Maria did not know anything about. If you are going to cut burglar alarms, you could not do it without a toolman skilled like Bellini.

Burnett expertly introduces all the tough hardened characters in the book, each of them independent, but perking up when they hear a big guy from behind the walls is ready to pull something big. The astute reader knows everything is not kosher with the plan, but the Doktor and the others are just too keen to get the cold hard half a million that they ignore their six sense about what could go wrong. When the actual robbery gets underway (and the majority of the novel is really the planning and the aftermath), they could not have imagined how wrong things could go and how they would all end up fleeing in every direction.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

""I bring 'em into the world, and I bury 'em. The same ones," thought old Doctor Carmichael. "It's getting a little trying."" - quoted from ‘The Asphalt Jungle’.


In 2018, the year I have read this novel for the first time, ‘The Asphalt Jungle’ is written as if the plot and underworld characters are purposefully stripped down to folkloric essentials in the telling of what is a timeless tale of personal and economic failures. All literary fripperies, fads, flashbacks and inventive twists to make whistling bells out of the old bells and whistles that modern authors currently use are missing in this novel. Yet nothing was sacrificed in in the minimal expository writing.

It was refreshing. I found myself experiencing jolts of literary pleasure with surprise and shock. W. T. Burnett, if you still were alive, I’d try to sing a few torch songs joining you in commiseration about societies of ambitious lowlives. Instead, gentle reader, I will include a link to a Carly Simon album, ‘Torch’, that I recommend you should have in the background as you read this excellent, if a bit sadly familiar (in several dimensions) 1940’s noir novel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9GFj3...

Not that many of these bad men in the book know how to love a woman, much less themselves, which appears to me to be an underlying theme (again, on several sadly familiar dimensions ...). Their girlfriends and wives certainly look at most of them with wistful longings and a sense of loss throughout. The best opportunity these guys have to take a pass on gambling, drinking to excess and crime is standing behind all of these guys - a woman. All of the good men (of which there are one or two, very much like Real Life today - *snicker*) have happy wives and kids.

Some fellows (and ladies, #metoo) when young find the shiny but expensive attractions of big cities more appealing than family life. Yesssss. So. The heist is born...


The list of characters (even the names the author uses are pure classic gold):

Manager of the heist “The Professor” Erwin Riemenschneider - A German who is a famous “heist artist”, recently released from prison, has a new proposition for a heist. He thinks with the right team of break-in experts, the biggest jeweler in the state, the Pelletier and Company with at least half a million dollars worth of gems, is easy pickings - if he can find a reputable fence, along with the best disreputable criminals renown for burglary. Unfortunately, who is available and ready to join in the plan are not exactly at the top of their game.

Alonzo Emmerich - apparently a very wealthy man with an invalid wife. He is a shady and expensive criminal lawyer with a taste for ostentatious spending. However, he is secretly on the point of bankruptcy - that little redhead Angela he is supporting, having spent thousands on her house, car, clothes and jewelry unexpectedly drained his accounts. He wants to be The Fence - if he actually had the money he is pretending to have. He is actually plotting a double cross. Can he do it? Emmerich has a startling revelation at the end - boredom, incredible exhausting boredom with his life, is behind every wrong move he has been making for decades. He has been “...moving through his life with automatic soullessness, like a clockwork robot.”

Charles ‘Cobby’ Cobb - “biggest non-syndicate bookie in the city” who introduces the Professor to Emmerich and Dix. He also is providing the initial front money secretly to Emmerich, having been talked into it by Emmerich. Of course Emmerich will pay him back - he’s rich, right? Emmerich is unable to get the funding for the heist right now, that’s all.

The “hooligan” Dix Handley - “...this big southerner — was a dangerous man, probably in one of the strong-arm rackets, a potential killer.” [Cobby says] “”Oh, he’s an out-of-work heavy—and crazy for the horses. My book beats him and beats him, and he keeps coming back for more.”” Dix, real name William Tuttle Jamieson, can’t stop thinking about going home to the farm, such beautiful country...he is old, in his fifties, and feeling tired, so very tired.

The Driver Gus Minisi - “little fat hunchback” who runs the all-night hamburger-and-newspaper joint near Camden West, a bad part of the city, a “downtown slum”. He did a stretch in prison, and he knows all of the players, “fronting” for them. The cops hassle him all of the time as a result, trying to make him “fink”, but he will never, right?

The Toolman Louis “Schemer” Bellini - trying to go straight, somewhat, after his marriage to innocent Maria and the birth of his year-old son. He has a job repairing appliances at an electrical-appliance store, but he still makes money “...in other ways...”

Bob Brannom - Emmerich’s right-hand henchman and a thuggish private detective.


On the good-guys team:

Lou Farbstein - wise and jaded newspaper reporter, “Like Diogenes, he’d been looking for an honest man for a long time...”

Police Commissioner Theo J. Hardy - no nonsense straight shooter, “...honest, able, hard-working, and with plenty of guts...”

The women - Dorothy ‘Doll’ Pelky, Maria Bellini, Angela Finley the redhead, Martha Hardy, May Emmerich, Frieda Farbstein - reflect loyalty, hearts of gold, or pure larceny, depending on their relationships with their men.

Published in 1949, W. R. Burnett’s ‘Asphalt Jungle’ seems to me THE master template for all heist novels ever written since the 1940’s era when most classic noir stories were written. Whatever books or stories about heists which came before or after ‘Asphalt Jungle’, I think this novel is the one which perfected the genre standard and set in place the elements around which all other heist stories must weave their recapitulated medleys of plot.


For those who enjoy more quality, if modern, noir torch songs:

https://youtu.be/AU_PuF59E5g

Or, if these ruined fellows make you angry, ladies, at the waste of your time (for balance, right?)

https://youtu.be/z4DYcIQ1v7M

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ticks all noir boxes: brooding atmosphere, varied cast of grey-scale (neither all-good nor all-bad) characters, a heist, fractured plot etc. but raised above the norm by the quality of Burnett's writing as he makes the city itself the star with continual descriptions of the streets and the sights, sounds and smells thereof, and much more realistic characterisation, motivations, plot choices and endings than in most other noir. Should really be 5 stars, but I'm rounding this down for being too good(!) as noir doesn't feel quiite right to me without its share of "pulpy" elements such as wise-cracking, double/triple-crossing, sex, violence, convoluted plot which are all toned down/absent.

[Geoff Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not like this book.
Too many characters.
Too little action.
Too much ugh.....

On the plus side it's short.

[Kristopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating read, if not of the greatest literary prowess. I'm still trying to decide if Burnett was providing an ironic critique of the city or an American-heartland, xenophobic rant against immigrants. Either way the highest it could get is a four.

The film adaptation is much better and, ironically, changes very little of the book. It just doesn't include the subtle xenophobic comments.

[Maria Beltrami · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una tipica vicenda noir degli anni '50 dello scorso secolo, con una banda di balordi che mette a segno il colpo del secolo, un commissario apparentemente impermeabile a qualsiasi genere di umanità e ben deciso a sradicare la criminalità, nani e ballerine assortiti, e il caso, l'imponderabile, la sfiga per dirla tutta, che ci mettono il naso, e tutto va a rotoli.
Bello e nerissimo.

[Rodolfo Santullo · Rating 5 out of 5]

En mi adolescencia comencé a leer mucho, pero mucho policial. Así, los clásicos Hammett, Chandler y Macdonald pasaron por mis manos, pero pronto empecé a excavar dentro de autores clásicos menos conocidos, tales cómo Horace McCoy, Charles Williams, Chester Himes, el inmenso Jim Thompson, etc. Pero hubo uno, a quién accedí gracias a la increíble colección Noir de Plaza y Janés que coordinaba Javier Coma que se me grabó a fuego y ese no fue otro más que William Riley Burnett. Porque Burnett, cuando todos hablaban de policías, detectives y el lado “correcto” de la ley, decidió pararse en la vereda de enfrente y cimentar cómo pocos un nuevo subgénero dentro del policial negro: las crook storys o historias de criminales. Así, el punto de vista ya no sería del perseguidor sino del perseguido, el crimen no sería investigado a posteriori sino que asistiríamos paso a paso a su planeamiento, elaboración y ejecución. Los protagonistas ya no serían los “buenos” -más o menos duros, más o menos cínicos- sino criminales y marginales que terminaban involucrados en un crimen o incluso eran profesionales del mismo. Y dentro de la extensa obra que Burnett dedicó a este subgénero hay no menos de tres obras maestras: Pequeño César, El Hombre Frío y la que nos ocupa hoy, La Jungla de Asfalto, que además de ser una novela buenísima fue inmortalizada en la gran pantalla nada menos que por John Huston. Hoy por hoy todo lo que plantea Burnett en su novela es por demás reconocible: el grupo de especialistas que se reúne para dar un golpe (en este caso el robo a una joyería), el plan en apariencia perfecto, las pequeñas muescas que ya comienzan a prefigurar en un inicio, que crecerán hasta arruinarlo todo, en parte por las traiciones que se van dando y en parte por un destino cruel que no parece jamás querer torcer su dureza; pero todo esto es reconocible -justamente- a partir de que Burnett (y otros) lo inventó, lo desarrolló, cómo nadie, lo volvió un género inmortal en sí mismo. La novela sigue funcionando perfecto -la película también, por si se lo preguntan- cómo ejemplo absoluto de historia de criminales clásica, maravillosa en su ejecución, personajes y violencia.

[Arantxa Rufo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Por una vez, y sin que sirva de precedente, tengo que decir que me gustó más la película, pero es que la película de John Huston es una obra maestra.

Quitando este detalle, en "La jungla de asfalto" es una novela negra con todos los ingredientes exigidos. Una trama criminal, basada en el robo a una joyería, mujeres vapuleadas por la vida y un montón de tipos duros.

Una historia con un intenso ritmo de thriller, una huida constante con tantos frentes abiertos que no te permite relajarte ni un segundo. Y es que, en esta jungla, no te puedes fiar de nadie.

👍 El inmenso trabajo para describir la psicología de los personajes, mediante sus acciones y pensamientos.
👍 La duda que siembra sobre todo el mundo.
👍 El destino de cada personaje.

👎 Tengo que admitir que, hay tanta gente involucrada, que en ocasiones me perdí.

[Jay Gertzman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The description of the industrial city in Chapter 2 is so important. The mass entertainment area , suburbs, the ethnic neighborhoods where men work in factory and warehouse, the immense slum with teeming tenements, millionaire's row -- a introduction to a world of a past both recent and yet now obliterated.

Burnett's awareness of the hidden decency of Dix and Doll and how buried under misfortune it is -- a great contrast to the commissioner's view of the "jungle.". That also tells you of the isolation and fears of the post war city. The Commish is also sympathetic, until you think about what he is saying.
He's as much a part of the jungle as Dix and Doll. The film is powerfully sensitive to the novel.

[Ffiamma · Rating 4 out of 5]

fantastico. come "piccolo cesare" (che è precedente) ma ancora migliore, un vero noir senza eroi- tutto incentrato su un gruppo di perdenti (dopo un iniziale barlume di speranza). non per niente, john huston ne ha tratto un capolavoro.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saw the noir movie directec by John Houston. Great stuff. Marilyn Monroe lit up the screen in 1950.

[Jose Moa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps for me one of the best noir novels ever writen that inspired an excelent movie by John Houston

[Nigel Bird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theo J Hardy is the new Police Commissioner. He’s straight, determined and ready to clean up the act of the force he oversees. He has his hands full with his colleagues and the press, so when the infamous heist planner, Riemenschneider (aka Herr Doktor, aka The Professor) finishes his spell in prison, Hardy’s not to happy that no one has noticed. Riemenschneider has disappeared into thin air and the cops have no angle to track him down.
I say thin air. That’s not exactly the case. He’s turned up at a gambling joint run by the shady Cobby and he’s ready to put into motion the perfect crime. To put everything in place, Riemenschneider requires a team and a bank roll. In order to find these, he insists on seeing the biggest cheese and slipperiest scumbag on the block, Emmerich.
Now Emmerich’s in a spot of bother. He’s spent all his dough on a dame. As well as supporting his bed-ridden wife at home, he has another house in which his sexy young thing enjoys all the trappings of luxury that money can buy. The tax people are after him and the prospect of a huge hit on a jewellery store is irresistible. In order to keep the balls in the air, he has to come up with other alternatives and prepares various plans in which he will end up double-crossing someone or other.
Dix is the Italian Stallion. At least he used to be. He’s been tamed by his wife and is besotted with his new son. He’s almost gone straight, but is keen to maintain his wealth to make sure his family are financially secure.
Dix and Brannon are hard men. Big tough guys who both play their cards close to their chests. Dix is batting for the gang, Brannon for Emmerich. There’s a showdown in prospect and you can almost smell the testosterone and the blood from the first moment we sense the pair will come together. The ensuing battle doesn’t disappoint and, as has to be, only one of them can walk away.
Gus is a hunchback. He works a diner counter. He has good beef for his friends and Grade B and C burgers for everyone else. He has a temper, a surprising power and he’s connected to everything that happens in the underworld crime scene. As it happens, he’s also a big fan of Dix’s and will back him all the way and make sure that he stays safe, no matter how many cops or villains are after him. Gus’s knowledge and connections spread everywhere like the sewers under the streets. There’s not a corner he doesn’t know or a sharp he hasn’t come across.
What happens when all these characters come together and the heist is played out is gripping. The plot shifts as fortunes rise and fall and circumstance changes. The robbery itself is tension-fuelled and the police chase is always engaging. The highlight, however, is the interplay between the criminals and the observation of the ways their loyalties split and fuse while their world turns into dust.
In the end, I was rooting for almost everyone. If it were possible, it would have been great for the cops to succeed and for the robbers to get away (most of them, at any rate), but that can’t happen.
The rounding off of each individual’s journey is compelling and triggers an emotional reaction. It didn’t all pan out in the way I hoped it might, but if it had it would have been much less of a book that it is.
A cracking read. Thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish.

[Ronald Koltnow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stop me if you've heard this before, but the book is better than the movie. And the movie's pretty damn great. Burnett's THE ASPHALT JUNGLE is so rich in characters that the central heist is downplayed. Dix, the embittered farmboy, now in his 50s, who just wants to return to a simpler life. Doll, his devoted lover. Emmerich, the corrupt lawyer brought down by a vapid redhead. They all fit into a tapestry of big city delusion and corruption. Chief Inspector Hardy, nominally the hero, suffers many of the same problems as the crooks. A highly ambitious crime novel, well worth your time.

[Tom Britz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Asphalt Jungle by W. R. Burnett was published in 1949. It is a tale of big city crime, specifically a jewelry heist. The city is as corrupt as any big city is and these other crimes are brought up as a periphery over-look. The author decided to narrow in on a big-time jewel heist, the largest within memory and the ineptness of the people that pull it off.
This novel was also made into a film it had a cameo by Marilyn Monroe in one of her earliest outings and directed by john Huston.

[Liam · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*

[James Thane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1949, The Asphalt Jungle is another excellent hard-boiled crime novel from W.R. Burnett. The story is set in an unnamed city in the Midwest that is deeply corrupt, beginning with many members of the city's police force. There's a new police commissioner in town, Theo Hardy, who is determined to clean up the police force and the city as a whole. Lou Farbstein is a cynical reporter who's been waiting a long time for an honest man to show up and hopes that Hardy can turn the trick.

Against that backdrop, a criminal gang is hoping to pull off the largest robbery in the city's history. There's a jewelry store in town with a million dollars worth of gems in its safe, and the store seems ripe for plucking. The mastermind behind the plot is a guy named Riemenschneider who is fresh out of prison. He's a man with a great reputation in the criminal world, having once pulled off a heist netting a hundred thousand dollars.

Riemenschneider arrives in town with a recommendation from his former cellmate. He is to contact a wealthy but bent criminal lawyer named Emmerich. Emmerich is supposed to finance the job and allegedly has a fence who can lay off the stolen jewels and turn them into cash. After meeting with Emmerich, Riemenschneider assembles the rest of the gang: a getaway driver, a safe man, and a muscle guy. All of these characters are very well drawn; each has his own reasons for signing on to the job, and each has his own dreams about what a successful result could do for his future.

The reader learns early on what Riemenschneider only begins to suspect later, and that is that Emmerich is the weak link in the scheme. Although reputed to be very wealthy, Emmerich has thrown away most of his money on a woman he's keeping and he can't afford to finance the job himself. He thus has to look elsewhere for the funding while hoping that his coconspirators don't find out what he is doing. And, inevitably, this is where things will begin to go south.

This is one of the great heist novels and it has a number of interesting female characters as well. It was ultimately made into a very good film, directed by John Huston and starring Sterling Hayden and featuring a very young Marilyn Monroe in one of her first movie roles.

"Back in the Day," Burnett was a very prolific writer and this is one of his best efforts. The publisher Stark House has just released a volume that includes this book along with another of Burnett's best novels, High Sierra. Two great reads that should appeal to anyone who loves hard-boiled crime fiction.

[Hogfather · Rating 3 out of 5]

W.R. Burnett could be an incredible writer when he dug deep into the interior lives of his characters. However, he was also heavily reliant on types; why dig into a character when you can rely on tried-and-true cliches? In The Asphalt Jungle, this bad habit is especially harmful, particularly because John Huston made a much better film adaptation that cuts out all of the fluff. Burnett's film tries to create a wide-reaching portrait of the film's unnamed city, touching on a wide array of people and their place in the society. But he doesn't say anything about it. He just regurgitates Saturday evening radio style fascist bullshit about the police and the nuclear family. In contrast, Huston's film focuses on the conflict between the humanity of the criminals and the mechanical precision of their plan, pulling out an interesting idea somewhat buried in Burnett's novel.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Noir thriller from the 40s, showing the planning of the robbery of a jewellery store and how the plans go awry. The characters involved are convincingly drawn, and the reader gets to understand all their strengths and weaknesses, and how these combine to bring disaster to the execution of their crime.

This was an easy read, very absorbing, and raising interesting questions about morality and honesty. The character of Dix, a violent 'hood' who is longing for the opportunity to go back to his childhood home, is the most memorable, but all the characters on both sides of the law are well-developed and realistic. I have an omnibus edition of W.R. Burnett's novels, and am looking forward to reading more by this author.