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Squeeze Play
Grief-stricken by the loss of their young son, Jack Wade and his wife Binny look for solace where they can. Other partners, work, liquor and the casinos of beautiful Lake Tahoe.... "And he was certain, because he could feel it in the pit of his stomach, that they were going to make it. Not a million bucks. Leave that to the fiction writers. But a cool one hundred G's, maybe. That was the kind of money it took the average guy ten to twenty years of hard labor to earn. They could get it in hours." It was the perfect con. An inside job, carefully planned. Pick a target and roll the dice. What could go wrong? Jack and Binny are about to find out. SQUEEZE PLAY is a classic noir thriller by one of the hidden masters of the genre.
First published January 1, 1962
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 4, 2025
Mckimmey sets Squeeze Play in the Redwood City area just south of San Francisco where Jack Wade works the grind at a local engineering firm. As our story opens, Jack wakes up after an all-night bender at a local motel where he spent the night with the firm’s hit-to-trot new secretary, Elaine Towne. “Yet, he kept reminding himself, he’d just spent the night in a motel with a beautiful girl who was not his wife —thought she had obviously left that motel hours before he had awakened. It was the first time since he’d married Binny that he had been untrue to her. And he did not seem to care.”
But the story quickly takes an odd Twlight Zone turn when Jack gets in his car and turns on his radio and hears that the South Lake Tahoe police have an all-points bulletin out for him and he’s supposed to have murdered his wife and a San Francisco herb dealer Charlie Wing known for carrying large sums of money from the casino at night. Jack, who is a careful engineer by trade, notes the odometer indicates an extra 450 miles since he had an oil change two days earlier, the round trip distance to Tahoe and back, but Jack hasn’t completely lost his marbles and knows he didn’t kill his wife though he had good cause to do so.
Mckimmey then purports to tell the story backwards, giving us readers a guidebook to how we got here. Or rather, how Jack ended up on the run from the police with a double murder hanging over him. We find out that while Jack grinds away all day at work, his wife Binny drinks all day with anyone who’ll buy her drinks at any time and any place and will go off with anyone. She’s even discovered the bus to Tahoe and, when she’s not sloshed in a dive near home, she’s heading to the casino to throw whatever money the Wards have and whatever she can get on credit down the drain.
As the reader, you actually have a moment of pity for her when you find out their four year old ran into traffic and was killed. But that pity doesn’t last long when you find out she was pouring herself a tall glass of vodka while the kid ran into the street unwatched unsupervised. She’s become a drunken shrew who ransacks their home for spare change, calls him at work screaming, and comes home from wherever she’s been bleary, with her dress ripped and her undergarments missing and calling her husband whose babe is Jack, Frank or Frankie.
Al l this proves though is that Jack is a guy who had a big motive for wiping out his wife. And, the logical explanation is that he got himself in a drunken stupor and drove four hours to the Lake, killed her and Mr. Wing too in a drunken jealous rage and headed back to the Bay Area where his motel alibi was supposed to protect him. It sounds like an amnesia plot, but Jack hasn’t lost his mind. He knows he didn’t murder Binny much as he would’ve liked to. Something’s not right in Denmark and he’s going to figure it out unless they catch him, try him, and execute him first.
Early on in the novel, McKimmey lets on that there’s another couple involved and they’ve set Jack up as the patsy. It’s no secret to the reader. The pages turn quickly and the story is exciting throughout. But the whole patsy setup is so extensive and has such detailed and lengthy planning, it’s far more complicated than the quick and simple murders. It’s almost so complex it’s hard to imagine anyone would go to that much trouble for the unlikely chance all the loose ends would come together. Then, of course, you get the meet-cute widowed mother next door Helen who risks everything to help Jack even after he admits to her that his alibi is sleeping with his sexpot secretary. You would have thought she would have decided Jack was scum and run off to protect her son from this probably-crazy double murderer.
Putting aside, these few details which detract from the believability of the novel, it is without question a well-written and engaging crime novel.
But the story quickly takes an odd Twlight Zone turn when Jack gets in his car and turns on his radio and hears that the South Lake Tahoe police have an all-points bulletin out for him and he’s supposed to have murdered his wife and a San Francisco herb dealer Charlie Wing known for carrying large sums of money from the casino at night. Jack, who is a careful engineer by trade, notes the odometer indicates an extra 450 miles since he had an oil change two days earlier, the round trip distance to Tahoe and back, but Jack hasn’t completely lost his marbles and knows he didn’t kill his wife though he had good cause to do so.
Mckimmey then purports to tell the story backwards, giving us readers a guidebook to how we got here. Or rather, how Jack ended up on the run from the police with a double murder hanging over him. We find out that while Jack grinds away all day at work, his wife Binny drinks all day with anyone who’ll buy her drinks at any time and any place and will go off with anyone. She’s even discovered the bus to Tahoe and, when she’s not sloshed in a dive near home, she’s heading to the casino to throw whatever money the Wards have and whatever she can get on credit down the drain.
As the reader, you actually have a moment of pity for her when you find out their four year old ran into traffic and was killed. But that pity doesn’t last long when you find out she was pouring herself a tall glass of vodka while the kid ran into the street unwatched unsupervised. She’s become a drunken shrew who ransacks their home for spare change, calls him at work screaming, and comes home from wherever she’s been bleary, with her dress ripped and her undergarments missing and calling her husband whose babe is Jack, Frank or Frankie.
Al l this proves though is that Jack is a guy who had a big motive for wiping out his wife. And, the logical explanation is that he got himself in a drunken stupor and drove four hours to the Lake, killed her and Mr. Wing too in a drunken jealous rage and headed back to the Bay Area where his motel alibi was supposed to protect him. It sounds like an amnesia plot, but Jack hasn’t lost his mind. He knows he didn’t murder Binny much as he would’ve liked to. Something’s not right in Denmark and he’s going to figure it out unless they catch him, try him, and execute him first.
Early on in the novel, McKimmey lets on that there’s another couple involved and they’ve set Jack up as the patsy. It’s no secret to the reader. The pages turn quickly and the story is exciting throughout. But the whole patsy setup is so extensive and has such detailed and lengthy planning, it’s far more complicated than the quick and simple murders. It’s almost so complex it’s hard to imagine anyone would go to that much trouble for the unlikely chance all the loose ends would come together. Then, of course, you get the meet-cute widowed mother next door Helen who risks everything to help Jack even after he admits to her that his alibi is sleeping with his sexpot secretary. You would have thought she would have decided Jack was scum and run off to protect her son from this probably-crazy double murderer.
Putting aside, these few details which detract from the believability of the novel, it is without question a well-written and engaging crime novel.
July 10, 2010
James McKimmey's Squeeze Play begins as a noir amnésique: Our everyman hero, Jack Wade, awakens in a motel room, unsure where he is, unable to remember the night before. Then, as he is driving home, Jack hears a news report: He is wanted for the murder of his alcoholic wife Bennie and a gambler named Charlie Wing. Could Jack have done it? He has to admit to himself that it is possible. . . . The novel's second chapter rewinds the plot eight days and begins tracking the events that led to the murders. Readers learn the truth before Jack does and then follow Jack as he tries prove his innocence before the cops catch him. In all, fairly standard stuff well done. Not as memorable as McKimmey's The Long Ride, but worth seeking out.
February 12, 2025
Imagine working as an engineer at a busy firm when an attractive young woman is hired to be a secretary in your department. She's cute and personable, a young woman everyone seems to like. Except that she's not at all what she seems. She is, in fact, a consummate actor, a femme fatale of monstrous proportions, a woman who has masterminded a crime that will cost lives and make her fabulously wealthy. Then imagine yourself being the person this woman has chosen to frame for her crime.
The above is not a spoiler, as this information is revealed very early in this novel that was first published in 1962. The fun is in the playing out of the story, the twists and turns, the duping of an innocent man, the careful execution of the crime, and the ultimate outcome.
James McKimmey (1923-2011) was a crime/noir writer from the 1950s and 60s who is highly respected by connoisseurs of the genre, but who never got the recognition he deserved. I can verify that he was a terrific storyteller. His writing is smooth and the story galloped along at a nice pace. I will be reading more of his work, and I heartily recommend that you check him out.
The above is not a spoiler, as this information is revealed very early in this novel that was first published in 1962. The fun is in the playing out of the story, the twists and turns, the duping of an innocent man, the careful execution of the crime, and the ultimate outcome.
James McKimmey (1923-2011) was a crime/noir writer from the 1950s and 60s who is highly respected by connoisseurs of the genre, but who never got the recognition he deserved. I can verify that he was a terrific storyteller. His writing is smooth and the story galloped along at a nice pace. I will be reading more of his work, and I heartily recommend that you check him out.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews