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I'll Get You for This
Chester Cain, gunman and gambler, finds his vacation at Paradise Springs rudely interrupted by the City Administrator, who uses a luscious woman to trap Cain into a murder frame-up.
From then on the action, punctuated by gunfire, moves like an express train, as Cain ploughs his way through violence and adventure to bring this fast-moving thriller to an explosive climax.
From then on the action, punctuated by gunfire, moves like an express train, as Cain ploughs his way through violence and adventure to bring this fast-moving thriller to an explosive climax.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1946
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About the author
James Hadley Chase
671 books1,018 followersRené Lodge Brabazon Raymond was born on 24th December 1906 in London, England, the son of Colonel Francis Raymond of the colonial Indian Army, a veterinary surgeon. His father intended his son to have a scientific career, was initially educated at King's School, Rochester, Kent. He left home at the age of 18 and became at different times a children's encyclopedia salesman, a salesman in a bookshop, and executive for a book wholesaler before turning to a writing career that produced more than 90 mystery books. His interests included photography (he was up to professional standard), reading and listening to classical music, being a particularly enthusiastic opera lover. Also as a form of relaxation between novels, he put together highly complicated and sophisticated Meccano models.
In 1932, Raymond married Sylvia Ray, who gave him a son. They were together until his death fifty three years later. Prohibition and the ensuing US Great Depression (1929–1939), had given rise to the Chicago gangster culture just prior to World War II. This, combined with her book trade experience, made him realise that there was a big demand for gangster stories. He wrote as R. Raymond, James Hadley Chase, James L. Docherty, Ambrose Grant and Raymond Marshall.
During World War II he served in the Royal Air Force, achieving the rank of Squadron Leader. Chase edited the RAF Journal with David Langdon and had several stories from it published after the war in the book Slipstream: A Royal Air Force Anthology.
Raymond moved to France in 1956 and then to Switzerland in 1969, living a secluded life in Corseaux-sur-Vevey, on Lake Geneva, from 1974. He eventually died there peacefully on 6 February 1985.
In 1932, Raymond married Sylvia Ray, who gave him a son. They were together until his death fifty three years later. Prohibition and the ensuing US Great Depression (1929–1939), had given rise to the Chicago gangster culture just prior to World War II. This, combined with her book trade experience, made him realise that there was a big demand for gangster stories. He wrote as R. Raymond, James Hadley Chase, James L. Docherty, Ambrose Grant and Raymond Marshall.
During World War II he served in the Royal Air Force, achieving the rank of Squadron Leader. Chase edited the RAF Journal with David Langdon and had several stories from it published after the war in the book Slipstream: A Royal Air Force Anthology.
Raymond moved to France in 1956 and then to Switzerland in 1969, living a secluded life in Corseaux-sur-Vevey, on Lake Geneva, from 1974. He eventually died there peacefully on 6 February 1985.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 8, 2025
In “I’ll Get You For This,” James Hadley Chase offers us Chester Cain, a tough-guy mobster killer, who does not necessarily think of himself as a tough-guy mobster. Cain came back from the war and could not get a regular job, so he gambled for four months, making a bundle. He was so successful at gambling that a “punk gambler” pulled a gun on him, which he took and “beat the guy soft with it.” This, according to Cain, made him think, that some guy would pull a gun on him and know how to use it. Therefore, he decided that he would be better at gunplay than anyone else. He got a room in a tenth-rate hotel and practiced pulling the gun out every day that he actually got really good at it.
Cain quickly, like all the good cowboys and outlaws in the Old West, got so good at it that he was the best quick-draw in town. But once having acquired that reputation in New York City no less, Cain was like a magnet drawing every phony quick-draw wannabe in town. Before he could blink, as he tells it, he gunned down five men in four months, only by being the quickest to the trigger, each time the other guy drawing first. “I got my roll and I got my reputation,” he states. “They said I was the fastest gun-thrower in the country.”
Chase thus paints Cain as being the toughest hombre in town, but one who sort of thinks he acquired his reputation for toughness without really meaning to. “I killed guys,” Cain explains, “but it wasn’t murder. Even the cops said so, and they should know. Every time I killed a guy I made sure he had the drop on me first, and I had witnesses to prove it.”
As our story opens, Cain is a tough guy from New York City who heads down to fictional Paradise Palms on the Florida coast, intending to just have a low-key vacation and not even planning to gamble. He has $20,000 in a cigar box and a gun hidden in his luggage. It is interesting the way Chase tells the story because Cain, as it turns out, hardly knew what to expect when he got to Paradise Palms: “They had told me that Paradise Palms was a pretty nice spot, but when I saw it, I was knocked for a loop. It was so good I stopped the Buick to gape at it.” He tells us: “Every tropical flower, tree and plant grew in the streets, and the effect was like a dream in Technicolor. The Colours hurt my eyes.” And: “There wasn’t a woman who hadn’t stripped down to the bare essentials. My eyes hadn’t over – eaten themselves like this in years.”
But Cain quickly begins wondering if Paradise Palms was too good to be true and has a hunch that something is cooking after the town rolls out the royal treatment for him. But, he fortunately was not left hanging for long, because he quickly ends up the protypical “fall guy” in a hotel room with a nude woman and the town mayor on the bed with his head bashed in. Not only that, but before he can even recover from the fog of the drugs he was slipped, half the police force is bursting into the hotel room. He has been set up in a perfect net and knows he has not a friend in town.
What follows is, not the story of a hoodlum out to take over a town, one gambling joint at a time, which is where you might have thought this tale was headed. Rather, it is a story of a man on the run for a murder he did not commit with the entire city on high alert for him. He has only the woman from the hotel room to rely on – and even then, he does not know how far to trust her. After all, she set him up and no one knows why she did not allow him to take the blame for the corpse in the room. Miss Wonderly as she is known throughout the novel does not even acquire a first name for quite a while- Clare, but she is Cain’s love interest in the story and his reason for acting like a white knight on a horse coming to her rescue to the point of even causing a prison break.
As it turns out, Cain becomes the guy who tilts at windmills and, though he and Clare could just walk off into the sunset, is determined to clear his name and to save the town from its overwhelming corruption. He has a few odd allies in this battle, a sport fisherman, a drunk rotund newsman, and perhaps a lawyer and eventually a private eye from the Ohio school of detecting. Chase created Cain as one of the more unlikely heroes you could find in crime fiction.
Cain quickly, like all the good cowboys and outlaws in the Old West, got so good at it that he was the best quick-draw in town. But once having acquired that reputation in New York City no less, Cain was like a magnet drawing every phony quick-draw wannabe in town. Before he could blink, as he tells it, he gunned down five men in four months, only by being the quickest to the trigger, each time the other guy drawing first. “I got my roll and I got my reputation,” he states. “They said I was the fastest gun-thrower in the country.”
Chase thus paints Cain as being the toughest hombre in town, but one who sort of thinks he acquired his reputation for toughness without really meaning to. “I killed guys,” Cain explains, “but it wasn’t murder. Even the cops said so, and they should know. Every time I killed a guy I made sure he had the drop on me first, and I had witnesses to prove it.”
As our story opens, Cain is a tough guy from New York City who heads down to fictional Paradise Palms on the Florida coast, intending to just have a low-key vacation and not even planning to gamble. He has $20,000 in a cigar box and a gun hidden in his luggage. It is interesting the way Chase tells the story because Cain, as it turns out, hardly knew what to expect when he got to Paradise Palms: “They had told me that Paradise Palms was a pretty nice spot, but when I saw it, I was knocked for a loop. It was so good I stopped the Buick to gape at it.” He tells us: “Every tropical flower, tree and plant grew in the streets, and the effect was like a dream in Technicolor. The Colours hurt my eyes.” And: “There wasn’t a woman who hadn’t stripped down to the bare essentials. My eyes hadn’t over – eaten themselves like this in years.”
But Cain quickly begins wondering if Paradise Palms was too good to be true and has a hunch that something is cooking after the town rolls out the royal treatment for him. But, he fortunately was not left hanging for long, because he quickly ends up the protypical “fall guy” in a hotel room with a nude woman and the town mayor on the bed with his head bashed in. Not only that, but before he can even recover from the fog of the drugs he was slipped, half the police force is bursting into the hotel room. He has been set up in a perfect net and knows he has not a friend in town.
What follows is, not the story of a hoodlum out to take over a town, one gambling joint at a time, which is where you might have thought this tale was headed. Rather, it is a story of a man on the run for a murder he did not commit with the entire city on high alert for him. He has only the woman from the hotel room to rely on – and even then, he does not know how far to trust her. After all, she set him up and no one knows why she did not allow him to take the blame for the corpse in the room. Miss Wonderly as she is known throughout the novel does not even acquire a first name for quite a while- Clare, but she is Cain’s love interest in the story and his reason for acting like a white knight on a horse coming to her rescue to the point of even causing a prison break.
As it turns out, Cain becomes the guy who tilts at windmills and, though he and Clare could just walk off into the sunset, is determined to clear his name and to save the town from its overwhelming corruption. He has a few odd allies in this battle, a sport fisherman, a drunk rotund newsman, and perhaps a lawyer and eventually a private eye from the Ohio school of detecting. Chase created Cain as one of the more unlikely heroes you could find in crime fiction.
January 10, 2021
In this postwar novel, Chase shifted gears and created a suspenseful action thriller, moving away from the hardboiled detective that he focused on in the books right before. Set initially in Florida, it seems to foreshadow many of his works of the late 1960s and 1970s. Strangely, most of the violence is off the page. Until the very end, that is. And the end is also notable because Chase has his protagonist, Cain, and his wife, Claire, move to the West Coast, near San Francisco. Happy endings are not quite JHC's thing, although the tired cynicism he expresses in the last paragraph belies the sense of futility that often dominates his other novels. By the way, there are plenty of comic moments, too. Lots of wisecracking and a light tone that somehow makes you sort of like Cain, who has so many notches on his gun from killing people in shootouts.
October 28, 2024
Rispetto ad altri gialli di Chase letti in passato, questo l'ho trovato più ricco d'azione, con più suspense e diversi colpi di scena nei momenti in cui poteva calare un po' l'attenzione.
La trama non è molto articolata, ma proprio quando ci si aspetta una certa svolta arriva quel colpo di scena che rimette tutto in discussione. Anche il tono ironico e scanzonato di alcune scene rendono la lettura davvero piacevole.
La trama non è molto articolata, ma proprio quando ci si aspetta una certa svolta arriva quel colpo di scena che rimette tutto in discussione. Anche il tono ironico e scanzonato di alcune scene rendono la lettura davvero piacevole.
October 16, 2020
The main character of this magnificent book, Chester Cain, is a well-known gambler who, in self-defense, managed to kill five people in a few months (killing is bad, it's a terrible sin), thanks to his dexterous handling of firearms. He comes to rest in the town of Paradise Springs (mind you, this is not our beloved legendary, fictional Paradise City!). He is surprised by the hospitality and cordiality of the casino manager and the mayor of the city. But suddenly he is accused of murdering a candidate for mayor, skillfully manipulating the facts. Run Chester, run... Run but find out the reason for that murder, deal with the real guilty in order to save yourself naturally. After all, Chester is the hero of the book, he can, but at this time how many interesting things await the reader! Real jam!
March 28, 2024
Už jsem do Chase četl věci na téma „muž v ohrožení“, nadržený příběh z džungle… a teď přichází nahláškovaná drsná škola, s tvrďáckým zabijákem, který přijíždí do idylického města, jen aby zjistil, že ho místní kápové hodlají využít.
Ne, Chase se s tím fakt nemaže. Příjezd, hlášky, návštěva v kasinu – a už hrdina leží na zemi a vedle něj je mrtvola.
Celý tenhle román je koncipovaný do několika v podstatě samostatných bloků. Máte to útěk před spravedlnosti, pátrání… ale pak se přítelkyně hlavního hrdiny ocitne ve vězení a jemu nezbývá se do toho vězení dostat a osvobodit jí. Pak je sekvence alá Rudá žeň, načež nějakých třicet stránek před koncem příběh končí, město je očištěné, všechno vyřešeno, hlavní padouši postříleni a hrdina se svou dívkou odjíždí do zapadajícího slunce, aby si pořídil dům a benzínovou pumpu. O čem to bude dál? O nápravě poloos? Klid, ve hře je ještě pár lidí, kteří chtějí srovnat účty… a ano, dostanou k tomu šanci.
Celkově mi to přišlo, že autor měl několik zajímavých scén, které se rozhodl směstnat do jedné knihy. A překvapivě mu to docela funguje, i když se mu atmosféra knihy dost mění. V jednom okamžiku je to téměř brutální stísňující horor, aby se to vzápětí změnilo v ryzí komedii: když třeba na scénu vstoupí detektiv, který své techniky (včetně střelby) studoval pouze korespondenčně (a přesto překvapivě válí), nebo když hrdina vyvolá konflikt mezi dvěma frakcemi… a pak je, s ležérním agentem FBI, zalezlý v hospodě za barem a společně sledují, jak se to kolem střílí, komentují to a balí ženský. Tohle je scéna, kterou bych si přál napsat já.
Plus má tahle kniha ještě jednu zásadní výhodu. I když je obálka z těch, kterými se dají mučit političtí vězni, text překládal skvělý Tomáš Hrách (do češtiny přeložil třeba Stephensonův Sníh a další velká díla) a tenhle překlad je fakt výborný, živý, hravý, nahláškovaný. Skoro bych ho podezříval, že část vtipnosti a zábavnosti téhle knihy vychází z jeho překladu.
Ne, Chase se s tím fakt nemaže. Příjezd, hlášky, návštěva v kasinu – a už hrdina leží na zemi a vedle něj je mrtvola.
Celý tenhle román je koncipovaný do několika v podstatě samostatných bloků. Máte to útěk před spravedlnosti, pátrání… ale pak se přítelkyně hlavního hrdiny ocitne ve vězení a jemu nezbývá se do toho vězení dostat a osvobodit jí. Pak je sekvence alá Rudá žeň, načež nějakých třicet stránek před koncem příběh končí, město je očištěné, všechno vyřešeno, hlavní padouši postříleni a hrdina se svou dívkou odjíždí do zapadajícího slunce, aby si pořídil dům a benzínovou pumpu. O čem to bude dál? O nápravě poloos? Klid, ve hře je ještě pár lidí, kteří chtějí srovnat účty… a ano, dostanou k tomu šanci.
Celkově mi to přišlo, že autor měl několik zajímavých scén, které se rozhodl směstnat do jedné knihy. A překvapivě mu to docela funguje, i když se mu atmosféra knihy dost mění. V jednom okamžiku je to téměř brutální stísňující horor, aby se to vzápětí změnilo v ryzí komedii: když třeba na scénu vstoupí detektiv, který své techniky (včetně střelby) studoval pouze korespondenčně (a přesto překvapivě válí), nebo když hrdina vyvolá konflikt mezi dvěma frakcemi… a pak je, s ležérním agentem FBI, zalezlý v hospodě za barem a společně sledují, jak se to kolem střílí, komentují to a balí ženský. Tohle je scéna, kterou bych si přál napsat já.
Plus má tahle kniha ještě jednu zásadní výhodu. I když je obálka z těch, kterými se dají mučit političtí vězni, text překládal skvělý Tomáš Hrách (do češtiny přeložil třeba Stephensonův Sníh a další velká díla) a tenhle překlad je fakt výborný, živý, hravý, nahláškovaný. Skoro bych ho podezříval, že část vtipnosti a zábavnosti téhle knihy vychází z jeho překladu.
February 20, 2025
Aika toimintaan painoittuva kirja eikä niinkään kovaksi keitettyä tunnelmaa kuin edellisissä Chaseissa. Ja paljon lupauksia siitä, miten hyväksi Chase myöhemmissä kirjoissaan päätyi.
Päähenkilö on kyllä yksi kovimpia poikia ikinä, joita on näissä kirjoissa kohdannut, Ardennien taisteluiden veteraani ja pistoolin käsittelyssä ykkönen. Ilmeisesti siis kovin sodassa traumatisoitunut mutta nyt korttia pelaamalla paikkansa maailmassa löytänyt.
Ihan jees, luettava.
Päähenkilö on kyllä yksi kovimpia poikia ikinä, joita on näissä kirjoissa kohdannut, Ardennien taisteluiden veteraani ja pistoolin käsittelyssä ykkönen. Ilmeisesti siis kovin sodassa traumatisoitunut mutta nyt korttia pelaamalla paikkansa maailmassa löytänyt.
Ihan jees, luettava.
February 15, 2014
What another thriller from the maestro, Chester Cain gunman and gambler starts his well earned vacation in Paradise Palms, he's not there long when he is set up to take the rap for a political murder,with the help of a beautiful woman who becomes his wife, sets out to destroy the organization,with the help of a just out of school private eye....
August 19, 2015
What another thriller from the maestro, Chester Cain, gunman and gambler starts his well earned vacation in Paradise Palms, he's not there long when he is set up to take the rap for a political murder, with the help of a beautiful woman, who becomes his wife, sets out to destroy the organization, with the help of a just out of school private eye.....
February 22, 2014
It was ok, light read, not great.
October 16, 2016
Good, action packed book for time passing...
April 15, 2017
Wow, what a ride! A really exciting journey: the plot is not particularly complicated but just when you'd expect the main character to flee and disappear there is a coup de théâtre: our hero decides to stay and solve the mystery (and his problems) earning a wonderful-looking blonde girl's love along the way.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews