The Squeeze / —And the Girl Screamed

by Gil Brewer, David Rachels (Introduction)

THE SQUEEZE

Joe Maule had been set up. He's into gambler Victor Jarnigan for $12,000. And naturally Jarnigan has a plan for Joe to pay him back, with interest. Jarnigan knows a guy who's sitting on $260,000 in stolen money, afraid to use it. All Joe has to do is get close to the guy's sister-in-law, and he's in. Finding the money should be a cinch, particularly if Joe doesn't want Jarnigan to help him on his way to a slow and painful death. The choice seems clear. But the sister-in-law is something else again. Nobody figured on Caroline—one very luscious redhead with some plans all her own.

—AND THE GIRL SCREAMED

Cliff knows that he and Eve are playing with fire. She’s married to an attorney who, though he no longer loves her, hates Cliff. That night, Cliff drives Eve out to a secluded beach spot. This might be their last time together. Then another car pulls up, and they hear a scream. Cliff runs to investigate, tripping over the body of a teenage girl in the sand. Her shadowy attacker flees, but Cliff can tell that she’s dead. It is only later that Cliff discovers that he has lost his wallet. It must be back in the sand next to the body. And with Eve’s husband out for blood, what are the odds the cops are going to believe he had nothing to do with it?

315 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 4, 2025

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

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brewer’s 1955 standalone novel “the Squeeze” is a brilliant piece of noir. At the heart of the novel, Brewer offers the sin of greed and the classic theme of a suitcase full of money and a handful of vultures fighting over it. Brewer wraps it though in a steamy package of lust and greed and desire and offers us a story through the humble eyes of an innocent patsy, Joe Maule, who gets conned into falling into a desperate pit of crime.

Maule had been an accountant for a chain of grocery stores, had a house, and plans for a certain girl to move in and make it home. But Maule went out and got drunk and ended up seventeen thousand dollars in debt to the local mobster and suddenly lost his job, his girl, and was selling fish on a Florida beach. And that’s when Jarnigan put the squeeze on Maule and squeezed tight. Jarnigan knew Maule couldn’t come up with the money short of robbing a bank. So Maule is in debt to a mobster and is going to be used for something.

Jarnigan then tells Maule a tale about a master thief who did nothing but steal for ten years and cache his money, $260,000 of cold hard untraceable cash. Until that thief got caught on a new job, accidentally killing the night watchman, and got the electric chair. The money had been slowly hidden away by a loyal friend. The friend, Ernest Lobb, however, never leaves his house and lives with his wife Sara and her sister Caroline. And here’s the kicker – Caroline saw Maule the first night he hit Jarnigan’s gambling hall and for whatever crazy reason took a liking to Maule. Caroline never falls for anyone, and Jarnigan has tried to get to her, sending different men, but Maule is the only one she ever asked about.

Jarnigan, like Redford and Newman later in the Sting, set up the whole scene with Maule to get him in a trap and force him to go after Caroline and get to Lobb. It’s as complicated plotting as any, but Brewer makes it work because he fills this novel with so much of the good stuff like lust and greed that traps Maule. Indeed, Maule is the reluctant plotter until he is entranced by Caroline and they plot to get the bundle of money from Lobb. What Brewer does do well here is he makes Caroline such a greedy little thing that Maule barely knows if she’s playing him too for the money or in cahoots with Jarnigan. And it gets to the point where he just doesn’t care cause he’s putty in her hands: “No matter what she was, what she did, I did not care. I went for her—there was nothing I could do about that. There was nothing I wanted to do about it.” He tells the reader: “I wanted to squeeze her in my fist, feel every inch of her hot, provocative body. I would go to hell for her, gladly. I could hate her, but I would always want her.”

The Lobbs are an interesting couple and almost a prime example of what greed does to people. The money has ruined them. They never leave the house. They can’t trust anyone. Sara is a fat blob gobbling down boxes of chocolates. Ernest is a frightened lunatic who can no longer bear human company. “Ernest Lobb was a squarely built individual, dressed in yellow flannel slacks and a black shirt, open at the throat. He did not have much neck; his extra-large head sat like a square pumpkin on his bear-like shoulders.”

There is so much pressure bearing down on Maule from the impatient mobster sending his goons to turn Maule’s kidneys into punching bags to Caroline the temptress who also wants Maule to beat the location of the money out of her brother in law. And that’s all before Maule has to start figuring out where to bury the bodies and how to keep one step ahead of the detectives. Brewer does a terrific job with this one.

And The Girl Screamed is a 1956 pulp classic by Gil Brewer, who wrote like crazy for many years, churning out top-notch pulp novel after top- notch pulp novel. This one centers around a familiar theme of a man on the run from the law because of a murder he did not commit and his single-minded pursuit of solving the crime before he is put behind bars for good. It also features other pulp motifs such as an obsession with a illicit affair and juvenile delinquency. Like all of Brewer’s novels, this one is fast-moving and the action does not let up from page one to the end.

He’s on the run and the law is on his heels as he tries to solve the crime himself, first going to the murder victim’s parents and posing as the investigator and then visiting the girl’s best friend, who lives without parents and thinks Cliff is just another man sent over for her to entertain for a few kicks and a few bucks. There is a theme running throughout the book about the teen delinquents who are running over town and acting immorally, without regard for the law. The narrator explains that the town had been getting hot on a delinquent kick. High schools had been torn up and painted up with gang names. “Kids would be kids, but the past few years it sometimes got so it would scare you.” There are some vivid scenes of a teen party out of control and the drunken parent partying with the kids and teens assaulting adults who are out to stop them.

Overall, it is another excellent piece by Brewer that moves quickly and vividly through the man-on-the-run plot. Well done.

[Nicholas Litchfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gil Brewer’s The Squeeze and —And the Girl Screamed, both set in 1950s Florida, form a double feature that highlights Brewer’s gift for suspenseful plotting and the raw complexity of his characters. In The Squeeze, Joe Maule, a broke accountant with a mounting gambling debt, finds himself a pawn in a scheme orchestrated by syndicate boss Victor Jarnigan. Brewer’s depiction of Florida is seedy and alive, a world of rigged casino machines, battered beach houses, and threats lurking behind every closed door. Joe’s uneasy alliance with the striking Caroline Shreves unfolds amid mounting violence and pressure from Jarnigan’s thugs, with Fritz Wallack’s theatrical menace and the hulking, memorable Ernest adding color and danger. Brewer’s knack for character detail is on full display, from Ernest’s ‘steel-coloured caterpillar’ eyebrows to Jarnigan’s presence haunting Joe ‘like a festering sore in a long heaven of cleanliness.’ The tension ratchets up, not just from the violence, but from the very real possibility that every move Joe and Caroline make will end in disaster.

—And the Girl Screamed centers on Cliff Reddick, a former cop whose identity and self-worth have been battered by a career-ending injury and a complicated affair. Brewer captures Cliff’s longing and frustration with a sure hand, as his desire to return to the force is matched only by his fraught relationship with Eve Thayer, whose powerful husband is as ruthless in love as in law. When Cliff becomes entangled in a murder investigation—his own wallet left at the scene—his frantic efforts to clear his name reveal a town roiling with juvenile delinquency and secrets. Brewer excels at drawing out the inner lives of his characters, and the supporting cast, especially the scheming Ed Thayer and the tormented Eve, add depth and tension to the proceedings.

Both novels are brisk, suspenseful, and powered by sharply realized characters. Brewer’s attention to the messiness of human choices grounds the violence and suspense in real emotional stakes, and this collection stands as a strong example of his ability to invest noir fiction with genuine complexity and consequence.