Tough Cop

by John Roeburt

THEY NEVER had it so good - the crooks, the grafters, all of New York's underworld. Johnny Devereaux was retiring from the force after 21 years. Devereaux was a tough cop, tough to encounter - impossible to bluff.
Devereaux was sitting in his car thinking of his retirement when a new future in the form of Jennifer Phillips jumped into his car and urgently pleaded, "Please hurry!" She was twenty years his junior - so what? She was very, very beautiful, she was in trouble, and Devereaux was ripe for romance.
Jennifer Phillips was deadly afraid of her father. She just knew that Martin Phillips couldn't be her father, a feeling strengthened by the fact that there was no record of her birth. Devereaux felt that such unreasoning terror must have some basis in fact.
Never before was Devereaux as determined to get to the bottom of a case! Before Devereaux was able to do it, many people died to keep the secret - too many people. He had to break a few bones to get the answer because an honest cop is necessarily a tough cop. And he had to hurt Jennifer Phillips in the end, when he faced her with the brutal answer to her question. It took a tough cop to do it - and Devereaux was all of that.

185 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1949

Reviews

[Raquel Santos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um hard boiled à séria de uma editora antiga que não conhecia, Rififi.

[Sam Reaves · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a used bookstore find which caught my eye with the title and pulpy cover art. John Roeburt had a career back in the 40's and 50's; he actually won an Edgar in 1949 for his radio scripts. He now seems largely forgotten. (His only Wikipedia page is in French.) This potboiler is about a New York detective named Johnny Devereaux who is engaged by a comely orphan to find out the real story behind her adoption by a renowned theater critic, a "dandified and dissolute sensualist" (apparently as close to saying "homosexual" as you could get in those days) who claims to be her father, which proposition she rejects. Devereaux's investigation triggers a series of murders and leads him by way of Sing Sing to a tough Brooklyn neighborhood and a twenty-year-old crime...
Never mind. It's not that bad, really; some of the characters are interesting and the late-forties New York cityscape is competently evoked. The problem is the prose style; Roeburt could be Exhibit A for the anti-adverb case, with gems like "Devereaux poked the rolling stomach placatingly," and "Devereaux's tone pitched excitedly." Devereaux is always getting off chairs nimbly, interrupting impatiently, beginning evasively, resuming nervously, asking compassionately, nodding gratefully, and in general using adverbs promiscuously. Enough, already.

[Patrick Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding tale published in 1949 of a cop that's retiring after a twenty-one career on the street getting caught up in saving a young girl twenty years his junior from her father, if he really is her father.

Before Johnny Devereaux knows it, he's discovered the truth about the girl's father and uncovered some dastardly business about three other men. The cast of characters includes a man with many aliases, a man trying to protect those without a future on the streets, a boxer who now runs a nightclub, a female photographer who shouldn't do what Johnny asks, an out of town thug whose looks belie his fury, a pool hall owner with a seemingly poor memory, a funeral home granny with a predilection for peppermints, and a confident who knows where to look for facts.

Plenty of great action, some excellent twists and turns, and Johnny evading death, but not injury, when the bullets go flying. What a page turner! This was exactly the type of book I was hoping this would be. Highest possible recommendation!

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: Officer Johnny Devereaux was retiring after 21 years, then Jennifer Phillips jumped into his car saying, Please hurry!