One Endless Hour

Drake - The Man With Nobody's Face #2

by Dan J. Marlowe

One of the most unusual hard-boiled novels, this story traces the efforts of the brutally effective bank robber in Dan Marlowe’s The Name of the Game is Death to recover from devastating fire damage to his face and resume his career. One Endless Hour begins with a summary of the end of The Name of the Game is Death, but quickly moves on to a tale that is both peculiar and nerve-wracking. The protagonist, who calls himself Earl Drake, hooks up with a gambling addict named Preacher Harris and a pornographic film maker named Dick Dahl to try to pull off a huge, complex heist that even he fears will fail.

Genres: Crime, Noir, Fiction, Hard Boiled, Pulp, Mystery

160 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

aka Albert Avellano, Jaime Sandaval, Gar Wilson (house name)

Dan J. Marlowe was a middle-aged businessman who, in the personal turmoil after the death of his wife of many years, decided to abandon his old life. He started writing, and his first novel was published when he was 45.

Marlowe's most famous book and his best-known character arrived from Fawcett Gold Medal Books in 1962 ("The Name of the Game Is Death").

Reviews

[Jayakrishnan · Rating 4 out of 5]

One Endless Hour is like a manual for the following:

1) how to plan an escape from jail after getting a plastic surgery.
2) the actual execution of the jail escape.
3) how to stay under the police radar while on the run.
4) how to disguise yourself.
5) how to access bank robbery plans.
6) how NOT to select your bank robbery partners (the tough as nails hero actually selects a porn filmmaker who travels with a camera and tripod as an accomplice)

None of the above matters because the middle class pussies whom the trio of robbers hold as hostages have their own terrible secrets and it ends up messing up the bank robbery.

I cannot believe someone like Brian de Palma did not make a movie based on this. It has scenes of the bank robbers surveilling/stalking the bank employees and the middle class families of the bank managers. There are also porn films shot by a bank accomplice, projected onto a wall. A Pakistani plastic surgeon. A muscular nude beautiful retarded woman hidden away in an underground gym. Lot of stuff for a sleazy Hitchcockian thriller.

This book is brilliantly plotted and relentlessly entertaining. But then why only 4 stars? Well, there are parts which explains what happened in the first novel and a revisit of Drake's violent childhood and teenage years. Of course the rest of the novel more than makes up for these problems. Anyway, it is no wonder Stephen King dedicated a whole novel to Marlowe. I have other books in various stages of completion, but I want to jump into the next Dan J Marlowe novel.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seven years after publishing "The Name of a the Game is Death," Marlowe wrote the sequel, "One Endless Hour." The backstory is that after the success of "The Name," an actual real-life bank robber, Al Nussbaum, contacted Marlowe from prison, urging Marlowe to write a sequel. This is what he wrote before going on to portray the lead character, Drake, in nearly a dozen more books: the "Operation" series of books. "One Endless Hour" begins by recapping and actually presenting again the last chapter of "The Name." Hint: read that one first.

Then, it goes off in a direction really reminiscent of Westlake's Parker series, particularly "The Man With The Getaway Face." Back in the sixties, plastic surgery was viewed as a way to perhaps completely change your appearance so much so that even your own mother wouldn't recognize you. Like Parker, Drake changes his appearance and then goes after the loot he left behind when he got locked up. The bulk of the novel focuses on pulling off a caper, together with help from a planner or schemer and a mismatched pair of accomplices, one a compulsive gambler and the other a compulsive pornographer.

This is a smooth, professionally-written book that is quite a hardboiled caper novel. Anyone who enjoys a good caper novel will want to read this one.

[Algernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Suddenly it was too late to back out – and to early to die ...

A sequel to the excellent The Name of the Game is Death , the novel starts with the closing chapter of the previous adventure of the man we might as well call Drake, in the absence of information about his real identity.

The title, and my opening quote, is a reference to the feeling of unavoidable doom the man who has chosen to live by the law of his gun is facing : a moment that stretches out to infinity from the crossroad where his old life ends in a blaze of fire [literally, in the prologue]

Badly burned in the explosion of his runaway car, Drake spends long months in a mental hospital, faking mental illness and waiting patiently for a chance to escape and to exact revenge against the people who betrayed him.

His series nickname of The Man with Nobody’s Face is explained in this episode and, with several lengthy flashbacks to Drake’s childhood and to his early criminal exploits, can be considered as his Origin story, but that is only half of the story.

The main attraction comes once Drake manages to break free of the mental hospital, in his usual brutal but efficient manner. If the first book was a revenge story in the manner of Richard B Stark [only more violent, if that’s even possible], the sequel is a classic bank robbery caper.
Drake desperately needs funds to keep himself off the police radar, and since he doesn’t want to reveal his new face to his old partners in crime, he uses a sort of dropbox service to contract a job through an anonymous intermediary.
The main problem with this approach is that this is a three man job, so Drake must work with new partners. He really has a bad track record with unreliable and/or duplicitous henchmen, but he really needs the money, and so gives the heist the go-ahead.

In the best noir tradition, the robbery is flawless in planning, but goes pearshaped in horrible ways once it is put into practice.

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

I was glued to every page of this gripping first person narration from Drake: both for the first half that he spends in hiding and for the bank robbery debacle. If anything, I felt the novel was over too quickly, but in a fitting manner.
Dan J Marlowe wrote here another lean and mean story, uncompromising and brutal in its description of a man who half drifted, half was pushed by society into a life of crime.
Drake is a thoroughly unpleasant character, but the glimpse we are offered into his background and into his thought processes almost redeem his life as a sort of deranged Lone Ranger fighting a corrupt system with a six-shooter.

I am tempted to continue with the series, even as I read that the next books head in a different direction [international James Bond adventures].

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fantastic hardboiled crime pulp from Dan Marlowe, picking up right where The Name of the Game Is Death left off. After recovering from severe and disfiguring burns, our bank robber protagonist (who's real name remains a mystery, let's call him Drake) sets out to escape from custody and recover his buried loot. But things start to move sideways, as they so often do in the dynamic field of armed robbery, and he finds himself in need of some quick cash and involved in a heist with some partners of questionable sanity and morality.

When it comes to business, Drake is without remorse. Smart, calculating and ruthlessly efficient. Marlowe's writing and pacing are superb. The prose is expertly crafted, with an eye for detail, especially with the spot on characterizations. Richly done, yet with a surprising efficiency of words.

Highly recommended for crime fiction fans!

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find an inevitable need to compare this to the Parker novels by Richard Stark, but this anti-hero is both grittier & more human than Parker. He's tough as a keg of nails, but has more realistic emotions than Parker - some doubts & anxiety that keep the character believable. He's a nasty piece of work, although he has his reasons. While I particularly like his back story, those couple of pages seemed to have been copied directly from the first book - not good - but it's not that long & can be skimmed easily enough. The books really need to be read in order.

Like Parker, he's a thief who tries for a good score a couple of times each year & lives fairly simply in between jobs. I like his legal jobs as a tree trimmer, locksmith & such. It's another way his character is rounded out well.

Also like Parker, he's smart & capable, but faces a lot of obstacles with human nature, Murphy's Law, & especially those he works with. Marlowe isn't very kind to him, either. Makes for an exciting ride. Highly recommended!

[Still · Rating 4 out of 5]

Riveting!
This one is sort of a Bizarro World version of a "Parker" heist.
Recommended to anyone who enjoys the Richard Stark "Parker" series.
Although I prepared myself for the ending I wasn't expecting something quite this hard-edged.

Would have made for a terrific EC Comics Shock SuspenStories entry circa 1954 as illustrated by Johnny Craig.

"CHOKE!!! GASP!!!!" indeed.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great sequel to Marlowe's The Name of the Game Is Death, which is one of my all-time favorite crime/noir novels. In this one Earl Drake gets a new face to replace the one he burned at the end of the last book, followed by escaping from a prison sanitarium with plans to rob a couple of banks. The ending sequence is completely whacked out and not something you will see coming.

[Stephen J. Golds · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you haven’t read any Marlowe yet and you’re a fan of pulp crime, you need to start reading the two Drake books today.

Marlowe’s writing’s so pulpy you’ll need to wash the blood, sweat and gunpowder from your hands after putting the book now.

Highly recommended
5/5

[WJEP · Rating 3 out of 5]

When the bank-robber from The Name of the Game is Death started driving a VW Beetle and shooting a 32 Sauer the yolks became too runny for me.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

4*

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

ONE ENDLESS HOUR is the follow-up to THE NAME OF THE GAME IS DEATH and overlaps that book with the prologue being the last chapter of the first. We find our hero, the man known as Chet Arnold, Earl Drake, and many other aliases locked in a prison hospital, major burns over his body, the result of an exploding gas tank in the crash while fleeing police. He's been here for months now, slowly recovering from the burns, and hoping for some kind of break so he could escape.

The early part of the book finds him plotting escape, needing plastic surgery to fix his face. He'd been pretending catatonia and officials thought it might help him come out. The prison doctor is from Pakistan, is a plastic surgeon serving an apprentice before getting an American medical license. Drake wants the deluxe package, but the doctor is not easily subverted when Drake promises twenty thousand down, another like amount upon completion. But the location and retrieval of a cache he'd hidden gets the down payment and another fifteen in Drake's hands.

The surgeries and healing play out over close to a year. Drake is scheming an escape the whole time. One of the guards hates him for what he did to the deputy sheriff in the first book, four bullets, and wants revenge. He's also crooked as a three dollar bill. With most of the money hidden, he places ten hundreds in his hand and promises more after he helps him escape.

Drake knows a double-cross is planned, but if he can't outsmart a dumb guard and his even dumber cohort...

He heads to the small town in Florida where he'd hidden the stash he'd went down to find when his partner stopped sending money(it's all chronicled in the first book), only to discover the deputy, now former, had survived and waited with a real deputy. The money had been found. The two are left dead and the money gone, he not knowing where the man had hid it.

Alone, on the run, with only about six thousand, a face full of healing scars, he finds a wig maker, who shows him how to fix it, how to do make-up to cover the healing scars, and something else he hadn't indulged in in over a year now. He departed, realizing he didn't even know her name.

An old hideaway for folks like him, run by a blind man, who kept him in groceries for a couple of months.

Money was getting low and Earl needed a new infusion fast. He was loathe to reveal his new face and put an old name to it, so he was reduced to impressing people anew and going to a man known as The Schemer who provided a detailed plan for a heist, one he'd been holding back until the right leader came along. It was a three man job and a list of available men was included. Drake knew only one of them, Preacher, a reliable man, though he had a gambling problem. He ended up selecting a man who made "nudie" films and financed them with these jobs.

The rest of the book is the planning, set-up, and, of course, the things that always go wrong with these types of jobs.

In many ways, Drake is as ruthless as Parker, though later novels in the series tone him down, eventually making him a spy for the government(not read any of those yet).

Recommended

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was another unputdownable work from Dan J. Marlowe. It was not as good as the first Earl Drake story, i.e. 'The Name of the Game is Death'. But it was grim, hard-hitting, relentless and darkly humorous in its own way. The action was more of an evasive type this time. Nevertheless, it was enjoyable and fast.
Recommended.

[The Professor · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I’ll show them.” Needed a short-ish diversion to calm and gentle waters, something unchallenging with loveable characters being nice to each other and reached for this. Dan J. Marlowe continues Earl Drake’s story from ‘The Name Of The Game Is Death’ and it’s a wonder the pages don’t burst into flames. It’s not quite as stellar as ‘Name’ but this is still scorching stuff.

Previously on Earl Drake’s Crazy Life Of Crime we left our, um, hero badly burned and incarcerated in a prison hospital. Gruff, terse, unsentimental, prone to violence…yes, that’s just the wardens and Marlowe pointedly makes the majority of characters the misanthropic Drake encounters right dodgy types, with only Blind Tom meeting with his approval and he’s a man who lives with a crocodile called Cordelia. Recuperating from his burns, Drake apes monosyllabism while being sadistically abused by his captors and bribes a bent plastic surgeon to give him a top make-over. It’s a move that is decidedly similar to Donald Westlake’s ‘The Man With the Getaway Face’ which features a similarly taciturn professional but if you’ve watched any sixties telefantasy series – Man From U.N.C.L.E., for example – you’ll know plastic surgery was certainly part of the zeitgeist. Drake leaves a trail of bodies in his wake escaping from the hospital with dwindling finances the only serious – but very relatable – cloud on the horizon. His incessant plotting and seething as he sits in his hospital chair is quite delicious.

In ‘The Name Of The Game Is Death’ Drake was a terrifying force of nature, exuding agency from every pore and given enough of a back story to just put you on his side. It’s therefore a pity that cash flow problems here put Drake on the back foot. The two bank jobs he participates in during the second half of the novel are messy affairs, the first near-spontaneous and the second designed by Robert ‘The Schemer’ Frenz – an unseen owlish type who does all the research about a job for you, in return for 12.5% of the take – meaning Drake, unlike Westlake’s Parker, does not “own” events around him. It’s a glaring come down after the tornado that wreaks havoc across America in ‘Name’ but Marlowe throws enough fun curveballs into the mix to keep us reading. Drake as a lean, mean, wig-buying machine gets his end away with a saleswoman in a chapter which might almost be titled “This Never Happens” (“Come on. You need a little hairpiece therapy…”) and the two men Drake & Co have to coerce into ‘fessing up the bank vault combination number have families which are just a tad more dysfunctional than anticipated (“I want you to kill Rachel before you leave”). Drake is left in flux at the end of the novel but remains a compelling figure we – and by ‘we’ I mean ‘I’ – get to pursue through subsequent ‘Operations’.

Is this worth reading in 2018? By gum, yes. It’s a shot of whisky, taken down straight. Marlowe’s oeuvre has seen a digital reprint in the internet age but I really think this and ‘Name’ need a proper prestigious paper edition. Maybe now that the University of Chicago Press has finished republishing the entire Parker sequence they could see their way to giving that nice Mr Drake the day in the sun a favorite of Stephen King deserves. “I would have liked to finish him off, but I had a use for him alive”

[Ross Cumming · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second in the Drake series sees Earl Drake recovering from his burns in a prison hospital and contemplating escape, which he eventually does with the help of a crooked guard and a new face, courtesy of a prison doctor. Once on the run he lines up a bank heist with two other crooks, whom he hasn't worked with before, in order to raise a big stake so that he can start life afresh.
This novel continues in similar hard boiled style to the first. The prologue is just a rehash of the last chapter of the first novel, as they were written 7 years apart, and we also get a much truncated re- telling of Drakes early life. However the book really hits it's stride in the second half where I really enjoyed the planning phase and also the carrying out of the bank job into which Drake goes into meticulous detail. Things don't go as planned and there are several surprised along the way.
I could actually imagine these Drake novels being turned into movies but they'd have to be directed by the Coen Brothers or Tarantino to do the story lines and characters justice ! I think you get the drift that these aren't totally conventional novels or characters.

[John Culuris]

Review to Come

[Rob Smith, Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clearly designed as the Parker novels were write, this is superior to those. The plotting is far better, as is the writing. I read the first book in the series in about a long time ago as separated the first Drake novel to this.

If approached as a Parker rip-off, the reader best hang on as differences come as the book gets nearer the end. Westlake seemed anxious to finish off his Parker books and rush an end. This book gets better and complicates as it gets nearer the finale.

Florida part: One could, even today, follow Marlowe's writing of Drake along US19 and through to DeFuniak Springs. Marlowe knew his territory. AS with the first, Hudson is treated as a large town of the time and that is as funny to think of then as now.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 7 out of ten points.

[Scott Schmidt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one, another random thrift grab. Marlowe's prose is thorough, sharp and efficient, just like his protagonist, Drake. Loved the lead-up to the bank job, suspense was on point. And the plot details were incredibly unique, not just stock "prison break" and "bank robbery" stuff you'd find in movies. I read that this character becomes a spy in the rest of the series, which is odd, probably a publisher request, so we'll see if I pick up another Drake story. This one was great, though.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the first two books in this series back to back. They are relatively short. I rated both at five stars which I don’t usually do. They are hard boiled noir and I am learning what that is. The stories are fast paced and the situations and language are probably not for everyone. They’ve inspired me to look up some other authors. Too many books too little time.

[Aristotle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently watched the movie 'Heat' with Robert De Niro a career criminal.
De Niro's character was intelligent, patient, disciplined and loyal to his friends. With all that why was he still robbing banks?
Chet Arnold reminded me of De Niro.
A good gritty sequel to The Name of the Game is Death.

[M. Sprouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hard-boiled, fast-paced novel for the tough guy. If you like short novels where the bad guy is the good guy then this one is for you. It was headed for 4 stars until I read the ending. The ending is unique and wild, but hard to believe.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Not bad.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bleak, worthy sequel to the almost forgotten classic The Name of the Game Is Death.

[David Way · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing fancy, just straight up action. Sort of weird at the end…

[Freddie the Know-it-all · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. Wanna read it again soon.

[Bevan Lisle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best read immediately after The Name of the Game is Death. It doesn't have the pacing or structure of that book and I suspect only keen fans of the hardboiled genre will love it.

[Malum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Instead of a police procedural, we have a bank robbing procedural. It's a lot slower than the first book and Drake feels a lot less mean, but it's still pretty unputdownable.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another extra hard boiled thriller by Marlowe. Continuation of first book

[Alfred Haplo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Drake series - The Man With Nobody's Face (12 works) https://www.goodreads.com/series/43125

The Name of the Game Is Death (#1)/Reviewed: 5 stars
One Endless Hour (#2): 4 stars

[George K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second book in Earl Drake series, where this tough guy has many serious problems to solve after the events of the previous superb book. The story is still strong, gritty, hard-boiled, noir and fast-paced, the narration and the prose without doubt amazing and hard, but, i don't know, something was missing, it's not on the same level as The Name Of The Game Is Death. Let's just say that the first book of the series is a Masterpiece in pulp genre and the second an amazing follow-up.

Ελληνικά:

"Πολύ νωρίς για να πεθάνω", εκδόσεις Άγκυρα.

Δεύτερο βιβλίο της σειράς με ήρωα τον ληστή τραπεζών και κατά περίσταση πριονιστή δέντρων Ερλ Ντρέικ, που για πρώτη φορά χρησιμοποιεί και επίσημα το συγκεκριμένο όνομα.

Η ιστορία αρχίζει αμέσως μετά το συγκλονιστικό τέλος του πρώτου βιβλίου, με τον Ντρέικ να βρίσκεται σοβαρά τραυματισμένος στην πτέρυγα φυλακισμένων ενός κρατικού νοσοκομείου. Αποφάσισε ν'αλλάξει πρόσωπο, ταυτότητα, να εκδικηθεί γι'αυτά που τράβηξε και να σχεδιάσει μια μεγάλη δουλειά που θα του εξασφαλίσει ένα κάποιο μέλλον. Για να γίνει αυτό, πρέπει πρώτα να επουλωθούν τα τραύματά του και ν'αποδράσει από το κρατικό νοσοκομείο όπου νοσηλεύεται και στη συνέχεια να βρει συνεργάτες και να οργανώσει ένα σίγουρο σχέδιο. Βέβαια δεν θα πάνε όλα κατ'ευχήν, αλλά αυτό είναι μάλλον κάτι αναμενόμενο...

Οπωσδήποτε πρόκειται για ένα εξαιρετικό σίκουελ, η πλοκή είναι αρκετά ενδιαφέρουσα και η δράση ικανοποιητική, η γραφή σκληρή και δίχως φτιασίδια, η ατμόσφαιρα σούπερ, νουάρ και κάπως μαύρη, αλλά, δεν ξέρω, κάτι στην ιστορία έλειπε, κάτι που έκανε το πρώτο βιβλίο της σειράς ένα πραγματικό αριστούργημα της παλπ αστυνομικής λογοτεχνίας.

Η εξέλιξη του χαρακτήρα του Ντρέικ πάντως μου φάνηκε ενδιαφέρουσα, παραμένει βίαιος και σκληρός απέναντι σε όσους του σταθούν εμπόδιο στα σχέδιά του, σε καμία περίπτωση δεν θα λυπηθεί κανέναν από δαύτους, αλλά παράλληλα θέλει να θάψει το παρελθόν του, να αποδεχτεί το νέο του πρόσωπο και την νέα του ταυτότητα και να κάνει ένα νέο ξεκίνημα, με προσεκτικότερα βήματα. Βέβαια με την ζωή που κάνει δύσκολα θα το πετύχει αυτό, αλλά τουλάχιστον θα προσπαθήσει. Το τέλος της ιστορίας αρκετά δυνατό, όχι ευχάριστο για κάποιους χαρακτήρες και σίγουρα όχι το ιδανικό για τον Ντρέικ, αλλά αυτά παθαίνει κανείς όταν μπλέκει σε φασαρίες...

Οι φαν του είδους το μόνο σίγουρο είναι ότι θα ψυχαγωγηθούν και θα περάσουν καλά, οι υπόλοιποι μάλλον να μείνουν μακριά. Λίαν συντόμως θα πιάσω και το τρίτο βιβλίο της σειράς, έχω μια περιέργεια να δω πως ο Ντρέικ θα γίνει κατάσκοπος ή κάτι παραπλήσιο...

[Jeff E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This depraved little book I started reading with pretty low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. The tale of an outlaw who is involved in an accident that completely disfigures his face. He works out a deal with a plastic surgeon at the prison hospital to get a completely new face and then escapes to plot a bank robbery with a group of miscreants. It is kind of a simple book but something about the story is captivating. Lots of action, a crusty hard personality, plotting with a cagey intelligence. The support characters are quite good also and a truly depraved climax. Fun. I have heard that other of this author's books are better but have yet to read any.