Devil in Dungarees

by Albert Conroy, David Rachels (Introduction)

HALF THE LOOT was Police Detective Bonner’s price for masterminding the bank robbery. Bonner couldn’t keep a gorgeous young chick like Peg on his lousy cop’s salary. And he had to have Peg. That’s why the deal to knock over the Second City National Bank. Seven minutes was all it would. take. Seven little minutes against a lifetime of easy living and Peg. There was only one thing wrong. But Bonner didn’t know it until it was too late. He had sold his soul to a DEVIL IN DUNGAREES.

Genres: Novels

204 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

pseudonym of Marvin H. Albert

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 2 out of 5]

The McGuffin in this rather mediocre noir is that the girl looks so incredibly hot when she's wearing dungarees that men will do anything for her. This is, in my experience, an unusual phenomenon. I'm not in any way trying to suggest that women should refrain from wearing dungarees. They are a useful, practical type of clothing, and I know plenty of women who can wear them and turn the odd head. But they're not going for the all-out-sexy, drive-the-guys-mad-with-lust look. If that's what they have in mind, they wear something else. It seemed to me that the cover artist also had problems here. He'd been told to portray this implausible temptress, and he couldn't figure out a solution. As far as I can see, he went back to the editor and said he'd given her a tight pair of jeans, take it or leave it, and the editor agreed.

Or at least, that's approximately what I remember thinking when I read it sometime in the early 80s. But now, with the advantage of the internet, all I need to do is go to GIS and type "hot women in dungarees" to discover that I was completely wrong. The trick couldn't be simpler: you just don't wear anything under the dungarees. Since I'd never seen anyone do this in real life, I somehow failed even to consider the possibility. But could the cover artist have missed it too? There's something here that doesn't add up.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Devil in Dungarees

Albert Conroy’s 1960 crime novel, Devil in Dungarees, is a classic tale of a bank robbery gone bad with all the robbers turning on each other, trying to figure out how it went bad and what happened to the suitcase full of money. Despite the title and lurid cover, Peg who fit her skin-tight jeans so well, is not quite the star player here even though several of the plotters are a little nutty over her figure. That star title would go to Officer Bonner, a good man gone bad who just sinks further and further into the mire as the story goes on. In the end, for Bonner, once it all went sideways, there was nothing left for him, not his job, not his good name, not one ounce of trust in anyone or anything. Desperation is all he has left and a host of bad decisions. Conroy does a great job of conveying the breakneck pace of events and the sense of desperation and despair and distrust between Bonner and Peg as their world shrinks narrower and narrower and their options do too.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a great first chapter that sets the stage as we meet two doomed (no spoiler, this is noir after all) protagonists - Walt Bonner, a cop planning a bank heist, and Peggy Jennett, the devil in the dungarees, leading him on with herself as bait - the story slows down a bit as we meet the other robbers involved in the heist. At this point the narrative also shifts from Walt's POV to what will become an omniscient POV. What we lose with the close identification with Walt is repaid with a much broader sense of the action. And action is the key, because from the moment the robbery starts there is no let up until the end. Conroy (a pseudo of Marvin H. Alberts) adds a new complication every couple pages with the classic plotting technique of pose a problem, solve it, create another problem, and keep it up to the last page. As a page-turning, action-packed, crime-noir novel, this has all the goods. Would have a made a great movie.

[Carla Remy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really good and fun. Great action, suspense and unpredictability. There are seven bank robbers, including killers and a crooked cop. There is one girl among them, and she is bad but not the worst of them. Yet she is the titular devil... because she looks sexy in jeans. Whatever. Great title.
7 hours later:
Thinking about it, Peggy does, in this book, lure a policemen into becoming a bank robber. I guess that's devilish, right, seducing and manipulating?

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book. This was actually a GoodReads discovery via my friend David. That's the great thing about a site such as this. You can see what others with similar tastes have rated highly.

This one has all the essential elements for what I consider a perfect hardboiled crime novel. It's time to trot out the list. Because this book has got it all.

1. A crime (can precede the timeline of the narrative)
2. Tough wise-cracking dialogue
3. An unsympathetic protagonist (with whom you none-the-less identify)
4. A femme fatale
5. Sexual tension
6. A tough brutal thug (the nemesis) with an unusual torture technique
7. Ironic plot twists
8. A double-cross
9. A sense though out that all the characters are doomed
10. A lurid cover featuring a scantily-clad woman and a gun
11. Rye whisky
12. A protagonist knocked unconscious at least once
13. A protagonist who is beaten up, shot or stabbed
14. Corrupt police officers and/or city officials

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beyond its regrettably dated title, Devil in Dungarees is an excellent little PBO. In particular, I was pleasantly surprised by its wandering third-person point of view. The novel begins with its focus on Walt Bonner, a good cop gone bad who is helping a gang of thieves to rob a bank. Having read more than a few books like this, I thought I could see the formula that was coming: Marvin H. Albert would soon show me the cruel events that had led Bonner to this desperate moment, and the narrative would expect me to feel sympathy for him and maybe even root for him. This assumed, however, that the third-person narrative would follow only Bonner. In this, I was wrong. After only a few pages, Bonner temporarily exited the stage, and the novel made its first shift to another third-person POV. Albert had me on my toes, and he kept me there for most of the novel. I do not mean to imply that Devil in Dungarees attempts anything innovative or daring in its narrative structure. Rather, I note that Albert made enough interesting (and sometimes dark) narrative choices to win me over. This one may not be at the top of the genre, but it is well above most of the heap.

First reading: 11 November 2009
Second reading: 9 September 2017

[Paperback Papa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Albert Conroy is Marvin Albert (not the sportscaster). In the 50's and 60's he was a top-level writer of hardboiled crime/noir, westerns, and even movie novelizations. He also wrote under the names Al Conroy and Nick Quarry. This book is from 1960.

There's so much wrong with "Devil in Dungarees." Why then did I give it a 5-star review? Because what's right with it is so off-the-charts great that what's wrong with it hardly matters.

Let's start with what's wrong: The title, the cover, and the impression they give. You think the "devil in dungarees" (the hot girl in the tight jeans) is going to be the main character. Nope, not even close. She's in it at the beginning and the end, but mostly not at all. You also think it's going to be a femme fatale-leads-poor-sucker-astray novel. Not really. There's a small element of that at the very beginning, but the story quickly moves on and leaves that whole concept behind.

Understand that in 1960, it was almost obligatory to put an attractive female on the cover with some kind of sexy, suggestive blurb. In this case, the folks at Fawcett Crest did it, even though it doesn't fit the content, further proving that you really can't judge a book by its cover.

So what have we here? A blistering crime story of a crooked cop helping a gang rob a bank. He helps the gang plan the heist by giving them inside information on where patrols are going to be and at what time. And of course, he does this for a cut of the money. But naturally, things go haywire.

It's the aftermath of the robbery that is tremendous fun. There is excitement galore and all kinds of crosses and double-crosses as each of the bad guys desperately tries to escape the tightening dragnet. The book mainly follows the crooked cop and his straight-arrow partner who is on the case, tracking him, closing in.

I found this book to be a joy to read. Albert's writing is terrific. He writes a great action scene and does a fine job of getting inside the heads of the crooked cop and his partner, who in one moment go from being best friends to deadly enemies. I found myself burning through the pages at a rapid clip. I highly recommend this book.