Wild to Possess / A Taste for Sin

by Gil Brewer

Two noir thrillers originally published in 1959 and 1961, filled with desperate characters, twisted obsessions and crazy schemes. As Bill Pronzini said of Gil Brewer, "he produced some of the most compelling noir softcover originals of the 1950's." Here are two of his best.

Genres: Noir, Crime, Pulp

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 13, 2006

About the author

Florida writer Gil Brewer was the author of dozens of wonderfully sleazy sex/crime adventure novels of the 1950's and 60's, including Backwoods Teaser and Nude on Thin Ice; some of them starring private eye Lee Baron (Wild) or the brothers Sam and Tate Morgan (The Bitch) . Gil Brewer, who had not previously published any novels, began to write for Gold Medal Paperbacks in 1950-51. Brewer wrote some 30 novels between 1951 and the late 60s – very often involving an ordinary man who becomes involved with, and is often corrupted and destroyed by, an evil or designing woman. His style is simple and direct, with sharp dialogue, often achieving considerable intensity.

Brewer was one of the many writers who ghost wrote under the Ellery Queen byline as well. Brewer also was known as Eric Fitzgerald, Bailey Morgan, and Elaine Evans.

http://www.gilbrewer.com/

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of two of Gil Brewer's later books. The first, Wild To Possess is pretty meh, but the omnibus ends well by closing out with a great piece of pulp writing in A Taste for Sin! As usual, it's a great, collectible release from Stark House with a gorgeous cover and sturdy binding. It also has worthy extras as well, including three essays about the writer, with interesting insight on his life and writing, and excerpts from personal letters by the man himself.

Here are my reviews for the individual books:

Wild To Possess (2 Stars)

A Taste For Sin (4.5 Stars)

[Steve Payne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wild To Possess (2 out of 5), A Taste Of Sin (4 out of 5).

After enjoying Brewer’s The Vengeful Virgin, I sought out more of his works.

Mmm? Not easy to mark a book with such varying quality. One of these was presumably written in one of Brewers 3-5 day work sprints. I’ll plump for a figure in the middle.

Wild To Possess, in which a drunken man overhears a kidnap/murder plot really is a case of telling not showing. The opening chapters are simply this happened and that happened, and then when dialogue finally does materialise it’s not the snappy, witty dialogue you expect from this genre. The fact that the characterisation is so poor doesn’t help. Still, the occasional memorable paragraph does emerge from the haze:-

Mosquitoes found Lew. One by one they sought him from the darkness. He swiped at them with his hands, felt them brush through his fingers, searching wildly for his blood. The gin bottle rested at his feet in the grass. He picked it up, looked at it, sloshed it.

A Taste Of Sin on the other hand, in which Jim Phalen falls uncontrollably for a deadly femme fatale who plans murder and robbery, is altogether snappier, livelier and far more engrossing. You have to just run with the occasional implausibility. Phalen’s disappearing at a crucial time in events for a Swiss travelogue had me furrowing my brow! I think I could have come up with a far simpler method of money transfer.

Again, we have some eye-catching sentences. Here witnessing the results of the good lady’s work on someone’s face, using a hammer:-

He was as dead as a man can get. He looked as if he’d tried to eat a live grenade.

And later:-

. . .all that remained was a bowl of dark pudding.

The book is worth it for the second novel, and also two insightful essays, one by his wife Verlaine, and another by writer Bill Pronzini.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two top-notch offerings by the Bukowski stew-bum of noir, Gil Brewer.
Wild To Possess has more double crosses than any other crime book I've ever read. More twisted than a pretzel.
A Taste For Sin is a gin-soaked nightmare about an absinthe freak who falls for a teenage bride with a rape fetish. Sick! These books are more Russ Meyer than Raymond Chandler, so put away that trench coat and fedora, champ.
Bill Pronzini's on hand to provide an exhaustive bio on Mr. Brewer and as an added bonus his widow Verlaine weighs in with a great bio on him, as well. An essential crime fiction purchase!

P.S. The eBook retails at $4.99 - quite a steal!

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Both novels in this collection are excellent. Brewer is very good at creating suspense, writing interesting plots and offbeat descriptions. Example: "Her name was Gloria. She looked as if she slept with dogs."
Main characters of both books are alcoholics and Brewer's words about drinking ring true and obviously come from inside knowledge on the subject.

[Victor Whitman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast paced, to put it mildly. Gil Brewer wrote in the 50s and 60s, and it is clear from these hard-boiled crime novels he had no fear or internal censor. Not artistic or particularly plausible. Still very entertaining. Lots of this stuff reads like a first draft, and probably is. Apparently he could write a novel in six days and once wrote one over three days. Amazing.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gil Brewer's noir WILD TO POSSESS probably ranks as one of his high-end B List efforts. Great steamy Florida setting and brilliant patches of prose make it quite readable and thus enjoyable for any noir lover.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars - A Taste for Sin is clearly the better book, but Wild to Possess isn't a bad read. According to the afterword by Bill Pronzini, Brewer wrote fast, very fast, so much so that there are weaknesses present here, but there's also brilliance.

[Kurt Reichenbaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two Gil Brewer novels in one book issued by Stark House Press. Here are two later novels of Brewer's which typify his style - obsession, lust and paranoia. It's nice to see Stark House bring two of Brewer's novels back to print. Both novels are very enjoyable, fast paced and satisfying. Also included are essays by Gregory Shepard, Bill Pronzini and Verlaine Brewer.

[Steve Malley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Noir doesn't get any more hard boiled than this. Check out Gil Brewer... if you've got the guts. ;)