A Fast One

by Paul Cain

First published by Doubleday in 1932 in the depth of the Great Depression, an era whose seamy side it depicts, and only recently rediscovered, Fast One by Paul Cain (one of the mystery men of American literature) explodes into real life with the story of one of the toughest characters ever to emerge in American fiction.

 

Paul Cain is the pseudonym of Peter Ruric, a man who emerged from nowhere in the 1930s, wrote Fast One and several short stories and movie scripts, and then disappeared. Nothing more has been heard of him. Gerry Kells, the antihero of his shocking, brutal novel, is equally mysterious. A loner with a reputation but without a visible past, Kells simply appears, re­arranges the lives of the Los Angeles underworld, and then is heard no more.

 

Only the strong prosper in the world of the depression. Seemingly amoral, Kells does prosper. He strikes to survive, kills without conscience, with­out time for conscience. But he never becomes a mere killing machine. His integrity, his humanity, abides in a code demanding that he pay for all services: those rendered for him, those rendered against him.

 

Fast paced and very readable, the novel limns a true character who should take his place in our national literature, if only for his representation of the individual will to survive in one of the toughest times in American life.

Genres: Crime, Noir, Fiction, Mystery, Hard Boiled, Novels, Mystery Thriller

First published January 1, 1933

About the author

Paul Cain was the pen name of George Caryl Sims (1902–1966), a pulp fiction author and screenwriter. His sole novel, Fast One (1932), is considered a landmark of the hardboiled style.

Reviews

[Zain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely, Hard-Boiled Literature.

George Carol Sims, was a man of many aliases. A son of a police officer and later, a Hollywood screenwriter and maybe other things, too.

He definitely knew how to write a book that’s oozing “Hollywood Movie.”

With a protagonist who laughs at violence and is constantly surrounded by other violent men (and women), you remind yourself to stay aloof from the characters. Not to get emotionally involved.

An anti-hero is born in Gerry Kelly!

You know you’re supposed to be rooting for him, but why? To kill everybody? Not that they don’t deserve it, but you need someone to cheer for.

With friends who are just as crooked and corrupted, where are the good guys? Bodies are flying and dying left and right. Is anyone going to survive?

You can make a bet on the ending…I’ll give you some odds. 😉

Five stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I'm being completely honest my rating should be 2.5 Stars. But this book is grim as FUCK and I love grim shit.

It also became very very clear while I was reading this book that the author Paul Cain didn't really give a shit if anyone liked his story.

And for those 2 reasons I upped my rating to 3 stars!

Truly I think the story of the mystery surrounding the author's life is a much more fascinating story then the one in this book. Not much is known about the author. Paul Cain wasn't his real name. His name was allegedly George Carrol Sims but even that might not be true. The real life Paul Cain seems like a real life Tom Ripley. Under the name Peter Ruric he worked as a screenwriter, dated actresses and travelled the world. He claimed to be from Chicago but who knows if that's true. I want someone to write a book about him, I would definitely read that.

Fast One is a grim and dark gangster story. There are no good guys in this book, everyone is a stone cold criminal with no feelings of guilt or remorse. Its unapologetically violent and the author doesn't attempt in anyway shape or form to downplay the gritty grim nature of things.

If you love Raymond Chandler novels then give Fast One a chance.

[Carla Remy · Rating 3 out of 5]

09/2021

From 1933
Takes place in a world without feelings, I think that is why it's considered the most hardboiled book ever. Makes it kind of hard to get into.

[Nigeyb · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a disappointment.

'Fast One' by Paul Cain was recommended to me by GoodReads because I’d read and enjoyed March Violets by Philip Kerr, one of the splendidly subtle and addictive Bernie Gunther books.

In the introduction to 'Fast One’, Max Décharné states that if there's a better hard boiled novel than 'Fast One' out there, he's still looking for it. I rubbed my hands together with glee. The Bernie Gunther novels are sublime and I usually enjoy noirish, hard boiled novels. I adore Raymond Chandler’s books and Ted ‘Get Carter’ Lewis’s novels are also firm favourites.

Whilst I can accept that 'Fast One’ might be a key work in the development of the genre, given it pre-dates Chandler’s novels, that is about all it has going for it. Well that and plenty of action. Gambler, tough guy gunman Kells refuses to be messed with by anyone. Every chapter has double-crosses, car chases, blackmailings, fist fights, bombings, stabbings, or shootings. The violent pace is unrelenting. Virtually ever character who is introduced to the story is just there to die soon afterwards. Even the biggest action junkie surely hankers for some of the subtlety and plotting of Chandler to make sense of the bloodbath? I know I did. I flatter myself that I am patient and bright enough to follow the plots of most books but 'Fast One’ defeated me. I was confused throughout the entire book. I read the first chapter twice before deciding I should just press on and enjoy the ride. Sadly, the ride is just one long numbing sequence of cut throat alliances that only last a few pages before death cuts them short as part of a seemingly endless stream of explosive violence.

What makes Marlowe, and Gunther for that matter, so great is that, despite their hardboiled, world weary, deeply cynical outlook, their humanity shines through from time to time. In short they are men of honour who hold up a mirror to their dark corrupt worlds so that we might believe there is always hope. Kells, the protagonist of 'Fast One’ is just another gangster, worse still, I am still clueless about his motivation, beyond money, in this confusing, boring book.

2/5

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a two-month reading ordeal, but I finished this relatively short novel this morning. Despite its many flaws it grew on me and I really liked the ending. So I've upgraded from the two stars I expected to give this book to three, meaning overall that I minimally liked it.

First, the flaws. The novel started out as five short stories. Therefore, every thirty pages or so we see a rapid shift of tone and emphasized characters, depending on which fifth of the patched together novel we are in. Second, the writing technique. Cain only depicts never tells. We thus are only shown what is happening, never why it is. Cain leaves the why of everything for the reader to figure out from the context of what is happening. That's a real challenge sometimes.

On occasion, Cain has a character summarize proceedings in dialog, probably at the beginning of a new installment. That actually helps the novel too, but it's still often really hard to figure out why things are happening as they are. For example, I didn't know a character named Nemo was shot and dying until he actually, startlingly died. That's because Kells, the protagonist, never saw him shot, and none of the characters mentioned it since it was too obvious to them to be worth mentioning. So there's no way the reader can tell. Seems like quite an omission. That's only one example of the limitations and difficulties caused by Cain's technique.

Third, none of these characters are at all likable. They're gangsters, petty crooks, journalists in cahoots with the mob, cheating and jealous wives, easily bribed taxi drivers, or dirty cops. Everyone is pond scum. We have no one to root for, though I imagine people will support Kells by virtue of his position as the book's protagonist. I found doing that difficult because so many of his actions are self-serving and simply heinous.

What I did like about the novel? Under all the problems and difficulties there's quite a story. How Kells makes $190,000 is nothing short of genius, determination, and surprisingly realistically portrayed. The detailed gambling depictions were fun too. Despite my problems with the technique, particularly its omissions, it is still interesting to see it tried. I've never read anything quite like it.

The best thing about the book is its nihilistic logic and realism. There's no reason to think good triumphs over evil or should just because we readers would like it to. In this novel, reader desires or expectations are as irrelevant and useless as a rain storm being prayed for by a southern governor in a drought. It's going to rain, or not, regardless. What happens in this novel just happens, as stuff does in real life, meaning the reader can't possibly guess the outcome. That may not sound like a big deal, but no novel I've ever read has been written that way. Good triumphing over evil, or at the very least its importance, is always assumed. Until this novel. And not since. At least not in my reading experience. That's refreshing, bold, and startlingly original.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Cain wrote many short stories but astonishingly only this one full length novel. And what a novel! Praised by contemporaries such as Raymond Chandler, on completing it I can see why. Rarely has a more amoral bunch of characters been assembled together in work of fiction.
The two main characters no doubt have SOME redeeming qualities, but I can't for the life of me work out what they may be.
If you're a fan of hard-boiled noir crime fiction, do yourself a favour and read this.
Fast One also appears in this Black Mask omnibus along with many of his short stories; The Paul Cain Omnibus: Every Crime Story and the Novel Fast One as Originally Published . In addition seven of his Black Mask short stories are available in Seven Slayers . Great cover.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wikipedia says Paul Cain is the pseudonym George Caryl Sims used. He wrote the one novel Fast One, 17 Black Mask short stories, and the movie script for the Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi horror film The Black Cat. I've seen The Black Cat, and liked it. The Fast One, published in 1932 during the Depression and heyday of the celebrated armed bank robbers like Dillinger, is regarded as a hardboiled/noir classic. I can see why. Gerry Kells, the protagonist, arrives in L.A. and decides he wants to be the top dog of the criminal underworld. There are lots of double-crosses, femme fatales, and loose money. The pace is relentless, and I sometimes got a little lost in keeping up with Kells and all the characters he deals with. There's not much character development, and Kells remains something of an enigma. He wants to grab the money, but he can't bring himself to run with it. There is always one more complication to deal with before he's ready to blow town. I enjoyed the hectic ride of a hardboiled novel that reminds me a little of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Cain is a bit of an enigma, a terrific writer who published only one novel and some short stories before pretty much disappearing from print and from history. (At least, easily uncovered history.) His one novel, FAST ONE, is as hardboiled as anything I've ever read. It reminds me a good deal of Dashiell Hammett's classic RED HARVEST, inasmuch as it has a central figure pitting various groups of nasty folk against each other. The one drawback I have with the book is that the plethora of characters are not well separated one from another, descriptively, and I had a hard time keeping them separate in my mind. Only reaching midway through the book could I picture an individual whenever I saw a character's name. This quibble aside, FAST ONE is a dark and dirty crime novel with great writing and a compelling story.

[Oziel Bispo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine uma história em que cada capítulo há uma morte, uma traição ,uma chantagem .Assim caminha "Fast one" ,que pode ser traduzido por "golpe rápido", e como o próprio nome sugere tudo acontece tudo muito rápido: A narrativa é rápida , os diálogos são rápidos , as traições são rápidas. As personagens agem rápido ,falam rápido e morrem rápido, e assim a história continua nesse ritmo frenético até o fim.
O Livro conta a história de um gângster ,Gerry Kells ,que tenta comandar o tráfico e o jogo na cidade de Los Angeles , e para isso faz uso de todos os métodos possíveis: assassinatos , alianças , subornos e chantagens, mas de repente ele se vê entre dois grupos rivais perigosos, que por fim se unem para ataca-lo.
Um livro no melhor estilo "hard-boiled" cheio de violência e crimes que te prenderá até o fim. Nunca se sabe quem é amigo ou inimigo de Kerry , Nunca!!!

[Gary Inbinder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quintessential 1930’s Noir. This is not Chandler or Hammett’s hard-boiled fiction. No Sam Spade, Continental OP, or Philip Marlowe. No tough but basically decent guy working the mean streets who is not himself mean. Gerry Kells, the protagonist, is mean. He's a gambler, a gunman, a crook. He isn’t hardboiled; he’s hard, raw and rotten. Moreover, there are no good guys and gals, just different categories of bad, like the damned souls in the several levels of Dante’s hell.
Otto Penzler made the distinction between Noir and the Hardboiled Detective novel in his excellent Huffington Post Article: Noir Fiction is About Losers, Not Private Eyes. Here’s a quote from Penzler that applies to Paul Cain’s novel:
“Look, noir is about losers. The characters in these existential, nihilistic tales are doomed. They may not die, but they probably should, as the life that awaits them is certain to be so ugly, so lost and lonely, that they’d be better off just curling up and getting it over with. And, let’s face it, they deserve it.
Pretty much everyone in a noir story (or film) is driven by greed, lust, jealousy or alienation, a path that inevitably sucks them into a downward spiral from which they cannot escape. They couldn’t find the exit from their personal highway to hell if flashing neon lights pointed to a town named Hope. It is their own lack of morality that blindly drives them to ruin.”
That pretty much sums up "Fast One". If you read this novel, don’t try to figure out who’s doing what to whom and why. Just go along for the violent, action-packed ride. It’s a roller-coaster to hell, and if you don’t want to follow that route, by all means skip it.

[cool breeze · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was written and set in seamy Los Angeles around 1932. LA is wallowing in the depths of the Depression, Prohibition, and corrupt machine politics (some things never change). The novel is more hard-boiled than Dashiell Hammett. It has more hard drinking than The Thin Man, though less than the all-time champion, Moscow to the End of the Line. The action is non-stop, slowing only slightly for a few sentences whenever the narrator loses consciousness, or yet another character gasps their last breath, both of which happen frequently. It has more twists and turns, and a higher individual body count, than any other book that I can recall.

This book is easily 5 stars in its genre, one of the best ever written of its kind. It isn’t Tolstoy, but it is Tolstoy within its genre. Raymond Chandler called it the "high point in the ultra hard-boiled manner".

[Gerry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Originally a collection of short stories in the 'Black Mask' magazine, 'Fast Fury' reads as such. It is sometimes difficult to link the chapters up and the story, described on the back cover blurb as 'complex with its twists and turns defies summary'. Quite, no surprise there!

Gerry Kells comes to town with the intention of being the top man; there are quite a number of floozies, plenty of money floating about, much of it seemingly for no apparent reason, and there are numerous bumpings off, many of them quite sudden and out of the blue. The characters, however, are far from memorable ... those that do get bumped off being as memorable as those who continue through the book - that is until they are also killed.

Hard boiled it may be but I find it very difficult to agree with the strapline on the cover of the book which has Raymond Chandler proclaiming, 'Some kind of highpoint in the ultra hardboiled manner!' I would hate to come across a low point in the genre.

[Jack Tripper · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was pretty much a slog for me. Yes, it moves at a blistering pace, but the author makes no attempt to connect the reader to the main character, or any of the other cardboard characters. In fact, it was nearly impossible for me to differentiate between the myriad players here, as they all talk in the same way, with little or no physical description, and when some minor character pops up 100 pages later, I had no idea who he or she was. You never really get into any of their heads, so I cared about nothing that happened because there were no emotional stakes. It really needed a cast of characters list at the beginning (which I see some other editions do have) so I wouldn't have had to constantly flip back and forth, but that wouldn't have saved Fast One from being a confusing mess.

2.0 Stars

[Feliks · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's SENSATIONAL

Swift and intense; in the mode of the very best hard-boiled crime tradition. A rich discovery of a mostly unknown 1930s talent. Cain clobbers! He whales! Takes names and kicks butt. He goes off. On a rampage. Gotta love it. His technique is superb.

Only one down--side, as far as I can see. The side-effect of such a fast-moving tale is: "I can't keep track of who's body that was on the floor a moment ago because another character came in and disposed of it and now the hero is chasing someone we should know the name of but we don't".

But it is soooo worth it. The mayhem in this little book--very reminiscent of Dashiell Hammett's 'Red Harvest'. Much for today's writers to learn from here. Much also which will appall and dismay today's mamby-pamby 'warriors for social justice'. Yes, be warned: there are slurs galore in this read.

Slim, short-page count, but blazing-hot read. Pulse-pounding action! I very much recommend it.

[Warren Stalley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smart guy Gerry Kells drifts into LA and finds himself in the middle of a crossfire between rival gangs, gangsters and politicians. The tough guy tries to stay alive and play all the angles while surrounded by crooks, cops, vixens, victims and vice. Author Paul Cain paints a dizzying sometimes confusing array of characters who shoot, smash, scream and surrender their way through this blistering paced crime novel. To summarise any fan of Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest will find much to enjoy here with this classic slice of hardboiled pulp fiction.

[George K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Αυτό είναι το πρώτο και το μοναδικό μυθιστόρημα του Πολ Κέιν, που πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε σε πέντε συνέχειες στο περιοδικό Black Mask, πριν από ογδόντα πέντε και πλέον χρόνια. Πρόκειται για ένα από τα χαρακτηριστικότερα και κλασικότερα σκληροτράχηλα παλπ μυθιστορήματα της τρομερής Αμερικάνικης Σχολής, ένα σχετικά παραγνωρισμένο και ακατέργαστο διαμάντι, που οι πραγματικοί και φανατικοί λάτρεις του είδους μάλλον θα απολαύσουν.

Η όλη ιστορία διαδραματίζεται στο Λος Άντζελες της δεκαετίας του '30, κατά την μεγάλη Οικονομική Ύφεση, και είναι γεμάτη γκάγκστερς, πιστολάδες, διεφθαρμένους αστυνομικούς και πολιτικούς, μοιραίες γυναίκες και μικροαπαταιώνες, δηλαδή κλασικές φιγούρες του υποκόσμου. Βασικό πρόσωπο της ιστορίας μπορεί να είναι ο Τζέρι Κελς, ένας γκάγκστερ που τα βάζει με όλους, όμως ουσιαστικός πρωταγωνιστής είναι ο βρώμικος κόσμος του εγκλήματος. Γινόμαστε μάρτυρες δεκάδων σκηνών βίας, προδοσιών και παιχνιδιών εξουσίας ανάμεσα στους πάσης φύσεως εγκληματίες, οι ρυθμοί είναι φρενήρεις και ανελέητοι, η μια σκηνή βίας διαδέχεται την άλλη, χωρίς σταματημό και χωρίς έλεος για τους πρωταγωνιστές. Ο συγγραφέας δεν μπήκε στον κόπο να αναπτύξει ιδιαίτερα τους χαρακτήρες του, οι οποίοι είναι αρχετυπικοί για το είδος, αλλά επίσης αρκετά διακριτοί. Η γραφή είναι άκρως ευκολοδιάβαστη, αρκούντως σκληροτράχηλη και χωρίς φτιασίδια, με λιτές πλην όμως ακριβείς περιγραφές σκηνικών, καταστάσεων και χαρακτήρων.

Όντας λάτρης των λεγόμενων "hard-boiled" μυθιστορημάτων, δηλώνω άκρως ικανοποιημένος από το μυθιστόρημα, το οποίο η αλήθεια είναι ότι ανυπομονούσα για αρκετό καιρό να μεταφραστεί στα ελληνικά. Όμως, οφείλω να πω ότι τόσο η ιστορία όσο και ο τρόπος εξιστόρησης και γραφής, σίγουρα δεν είναι για όλα τα αναγνωστικά γούστα. Θέλω να πω, ουσιαστικά έχουμε να κάνουμε με ένα παλπ μυθιστόρημα γεμάτο βία και ένταση, ο συγγραφέας δεν ασχολείται με βαθύτερα νοήματα ή μηνύματα, οι χαρακτήρες δεν έχουν ιδιαίτερο βάθος και είναι όλοι τους "κακοί", όλα αυτά που γίνονται είναι πολλά και γίνονται γρήγορα, δεν υπάρχει χώρος για συναισθηματισμούς. Προσωπικά το κατευχαριστήθηκα, αλλά εγώ γουστάρω (και) τέτοιου είδους μυθιστορήματα.

Υ.Γ. Πολύ ωραία η έκδοση του Public, με γλαφυρή μετάφραση και πραγματικά φοβερό εξώφυλλο. Ελπίζω να ακολουθήσουν και άλλα τέτοια αμετάφραστα μέχρι σήμερα διαμαντάκια στη σειρά Noir των συγκεκριμένων εκδόσεων. Έχω να προτείνω ένα κάρο βιβλία...

[Tim Schneider · Rating 3 out of 5]

Huh. Well. That was certainly a book.

This may be a case of me just not getting it. This is generally considered one of the great hard-boiled books. To me it was pulp...but not in the better sense of pulp. This was far closer to Carroll John Daly than it was to Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler.

The protagonist, Gerry Kells, has come to L.A. (we know it's L.A. because a good 10% of the prose is devoted to telling us the directions and streets everyone drives and walks on) from New York. The local gangsters and political machines keep trying to lure Kells in...for reasons. At the same time they keep trying to double cross him even if he doesn't want to be involved...for reasons. Then when he decides to get involved various things happen...for reasons. Part of the problem with discerning the motivations of the characters is that Cain spends pretty much no time developing any of them. There are no discernible personalities here. There are names of characters who are about an inch deep in characterization.

One of the things that people tout about the book is that it just keeps driving forward. And I guess it does, except when it's explaining how to drive from one side of L.A. to the other road by road. But the drive doesn't add up to much. And to the extent is adds to anything it's not much that we haven't seen done infinitely better in Red Harvest or in The Glass Key.

I wouldn't say that I'm unhappy I read this. I just have to say that I don't find it in any way special.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of classic hard-boiled fiction, but damn, this is just impenetrable, full of passages like this:

--"Listen. Doc went to Perry's to see me...What for? I was with Jack Rose being propositioned to come in with him and Doc, on the Joanna. They're evidently figuring Fay and Hesse to make things tough and wanted me for a flash."--

and

--"Rose called Eddie O'Donnell and me after you left him this afternoon. He said Dave Perry had called while you were there - told him that Doc was at the joint in Hollywood waiting for you...Perry knew Rose was going to have Doc bumped - an' he knew Rose wanted to frame it for you...It looked like a good play."--

Hello, come again? Since there are no characters in this novel, only ciphers with names attached, all of this is literally impossible to follow. Although written in apparently grammatical English sentences, it might as well be Basque for all the sense one can make of it. "Fast One" has an abstract quality that some readers have championed, but I have not been able to get into it.

UPDATE: The bleak final chapter is memorable and gooses the rating a point.

[Brian Longtin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clipped sentences that hit like bullets. Hard and fast. There's no grand story here. Just tough men doing dirty business over stiff drinks in the smoky rooms of old Hollywood. Most of them die quick, a few die slow. There are no happy endings.

[Bruce Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1936, Gertrude Stein called the detective story "the only really modern novel form that has come into existence..." Paul Cain, writing for a bet, wrote five crime stories scrunched into a novel,Fast One in 1933.
This isn't really hard-boiled. It is titanium-tipped lit. Kells, a muscle-man enforcer, is the hero of this story. He is framed, shot, stabbed, beaten, clubbed, making mayhem and increasing numbers of enemies on both sides of the law to kill someone who wronged him.
This single-minded dedication to duty reminds me of the Chūshingura the 47 rōnin who sacrificed all for revenge. Like Kells, rōnin have no master.
Like them, Kells doesn't have much time for sweet talk, chit-chat or pleasantries:

I never worked for anybody in my life and I’m too old to start. Because I don’t like the racket, anyway—l was aced in. It’s full of tinhorns and two-bit politicians and double-crossers—the whole goddamned business gives me a severe pain in the backside.

Stripped down slang clangs the senses:

The greaser kept fingering a chiv in his belt—you know: the old noiseless ear-to-ear gag.

Cain wrote at a time when just about everyone was a scam artist, a hypocrite, liar, criminal, or a cheat. They'd had twelve years of Prohibition.

“We're all right, baby,” he said softly. “They build these cars in Detroit. That’s machine-gun country."

Jeffrey Epstein's game is nothing new. "Political information" as a squeeze tool is in the story, as is cocaine. In some ways, it could have been written yesterday.

I was surprised to learn that Paul Cain (not his real name) hung out with Sinclair Lewis, and gave Myrna Loy her name. He also left us a bit of wisdom: "The smarter they are, the sappier the frame they’ll go for."

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great example of (very) hard-boiled pulp fiction. The story travels at a blistering pace, the main character is tough as nails and the story has more twists and turns than a bag of pretzels.

This is indeed the type of story Chandler spoke about where a man with a gun is constantly entering the room to keep the story going. It happens a lot at the end of cliff-hanger chapters. Furthermore I've never read a story where the protagonist was knocked unconscious so often. It’s got a good pacing, the plot is a bit dense but not too hard to follow. It feels more like a series of stories than a novel headed in one direction. But that's also because of the interesting character of Kells himself. Kells is in it for the adventure, he and his friends thrive on it. He's bit like your usual private detective, but seamier. Most other characters here are your typical, cookie cutter pulp types. The bad girl, the gangsters, the corrupt cops, etc. But as pulp novels go this one certainly entertains.

I like how Cain describes the action in a gambling den by the clipped dialogue more than anything else:

"Eight.... Point is eight, a three-way... Get your bets down, men.... Throws five—point is eight.... Throws eleven, a field point, men.... Throws four—another fielder. Get 'em in the field, boys.... Five... Seven, out. Next man. Who likes this lucky shooter?..."

I have no idea what's going on, but it's still very illustrative. Later he does a good job describing a boxing match in much the same clipped manner.

The end of the story came as a bit of a shock to me, it's very noir and hard-boiled as well.

[Paul Bartusiak · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first blush, one might wonder whether the term "Fast One" refers to the character summarily referred to by that nickname, or the novel itself. The say the story reveals itself at a lightning pace would be a huge understatement. Steeped in the gumshoe private investigator world of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, it's like speed-reading with the fast forward button depressed at the same time!

The first half of the story had me hooked, even if it took me a few pages to get comfortable with the pacing and the cast of characters furiously revealed. The shortcoming comes by the fact that the pace never lets up. One brawl, double cross, and gunpoint encounter after another, right up to the end. It became a bit much. I read the story in two nights' sittings, and it was a lot of fun, for sure. Too bad the book didn't take the opportunity for a breather every now and again. Funny thing, the "Afterword" contained in the version I read said the same thing. How refreshing it is to encounter actual honesty in critical review, in that very book, no less.

Fast One was written in the 20's and was revived from out-of-print status, owing to its literary merit and place in history (depression era U.S., along with the fatalistic worldview that resulted). The book was suggested to me by the moderator, Feliks, of one of the Spy Groups I belong to on Goodreads. He knew I was in a reading rut, looking for something that would grab me by the shirt collars and give me a jolt. Fast One did the trick!

[Ace McGee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Holy Grail of pulp novels.

years of reading references to ‘Paul Cain’- not his real name but who knows his real name- I finally tracked down this No Exit Press British edition of his only novel, Fast One. No pulp novel should take six weeks to read but this story is so convoluted that at one point I was forced to go back and reread the first 60 pages! And with good reason, what with this being 5 separate ‘Black Mask’ tales cobbled into one book. This story ‘s genius is obvious in the jerky flow of the narrative. But it’s all worth the effort as the story races to a climax. My advice, when you get to chapter 8, take a break, top off you drink, open a fresh pack of Chesterfields, and hold on tight!

Best line:
Following an attempted hit by the riddling of their car by Tommy Gun fire, our protagonist turns to his moll and states: “We’re all right, baby. They build these cars in Detroit-that’s machine-gun territory.”

Ace

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! I've read quite a bit about this book over the past few years, and it's pretty much all true - it's an insanely paced, amoral, booze-fueled epic (albeit one told in just over 200 pages). But unlike a few other stories I've read in a similar vein, this one is strangely believable, most of it makes sense the whole way through (although sometimes the pace is so fast you just have to go with it), and although the characters aren't exactly fleshed out, they strike a chord. It also has one of the best - and most powerful - last lines I've ever read. There aren't many books that I read twice, even if I've really enjoyed them, but I think this will be one of them.
Nudging four and a half stars.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the purest example of its genre, Paul Cain's FAST ONE (the only novel he ever wrote) is so hard-boiled it almost crunches. Fast-moving, brutal, and possessing an unforgettable ending. The Black Lizard edition has a nice little introduction about the author (a.k.a. Paul Ruric, a.k.a. George Carrol Sims) whose life was so strange and shadowy he'd be a great subject for another novel.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You’ve seen too many gangster pictures, that’s what’s wrong with you”-Miss Granquist, to Gerry Kells

“If you say that someone has pulled a fast one on you, you mean that they have cheated or tricked you."

Fast One (1932) by Paul Cain is a kind of classic depression-era noir with the distinction of introducing the names of more characters in its short (174 page) tale than I ever recall encountering in a single book. I lost track, though I actually wrote down the names of most of them for no good reason except to see if it might help me figure what the hell was going on,.and in the first thirty pages there are already twelve, but I am quite sure the total exceeds sixty characters in 174 pages! You thought keeping track of the characters in a Russian novel was challenging?! Get over it, baby!

I think the idea is pacing--lean and mean and somewhat disconcerting. The tone is violent and fast to the point of dizzying. It’s not really so much about plot as propulsion. Raymond Chandler--also not known for plot coherence--blurbs the book with admiration: "the high point in the ultra hard-boiled manner." Paul Cain is one pseudonym for George Caryl Sims, who is hard to track down as he lied about his life many times-pulled a fast one on us, yup--making up much of what we may think we may know about him. But Fast One is his best known work, first published as a series of stories in Black Mask in 1931-32. That's a fact.

Fast One--an act of deceit--is what everyone wants to play on everyone in this book, featuring gambler/gunman Gerry Kells in an LA gangland story, Miss Granquist (no first name!) on his arm. A(n obligatory) LOT of people die in this book, natch. And there’s a lot of inside noir lingo and drinking and grinning wise guys taking it on the chin.

Oh, the getaway car driven by Miss Granquist--driven too fast around curves, just like her--is described as a fast one. It is tempting to say that Cain, with his speedy introduction to most of LA’s shady characters--pulled a fast one on his readers, too. But I’ll say it’s worth the price of admission at the carnie, 25 cents in 1932l

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fast paced and hard-boiled, Fast One is in the vein of The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep. Unfortunately I didn't really think it measured up to those two. I was often confused by the large cast of characters and it lacked a solvable mystery. While the main character, Gerry Kells, was fun and fast talking, all the rest of the characters, especially the love interest, were incredibly under-developed. It also lacked a lot of the charm of a Sam Spade or a Philip Marlowe novel. The best thing about it to me was that it talks in detail about where he is in LA, usually Hollywood, which is where I live. It was fun to follow along and really grasp what part of the city he was in.

Gerry Kells, a former New York city enforcer now living in LA, gets embroiled in a turf war between several rival crime bosses. After being framed for murder, he manages to get himself deeper and deeper in trouble until all of his allies are gunned down and the odds of his own survival shrinks to almost none. It is described as one of the most hard-boiled pulp fiction novels of all time and I assume that is because of the very bleak ending, much darker than most pulp fiction. Perhaps at the time this was incredibly unique and twisted but now it just seems sort of underdeveloped and surface level. Kells is just another hero who somehow manages to survive through sheer toughness and courage, a misogynist masculine ideal, with no real personality or character development.

[Elderberrywine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This noir classic was created when Paul Cain patched together five stories that he had written for the detective magazine Black Mask. Published in 1933, it soon became famous as the book that was just too hardboiled to be fashioned into a movie. And seriously, it is, even by today’s standards. Daaaaamn son.

Paul Cain was by then a slippery character in Hollywood. That was not his real name, nobody was quite sure where he was from (spoiler, Iowa, actually), and that was the way he liked it. Sometimes he was a Russian poet, sometimes he was a Dada painter. And, fun fact, it was he who came up with Myrna Loy’s stage name. So good on him for that. This book is full of bootlegging, cocaine, gangsters, gambling boats, skeevy doctors, and shady politicians. So you know, 1930s Los Angeles. (Some things have changed. Ain’t gonna say which.)

Gerry Kells is a gambler from back East who stumbles onto a windfall in LA. But a couple of rival crooked politicians are after him, his girlfriend has more than one serious substance abuse issue, the police are trying to fall in with whoever seems to currently have the winning hand, and his friends in town are fairly thin on the ground. He knows he’s got to take the Santa Fe midnight special out of town, but he just wants to make sure he-s not leaving anything behind that is rightfully his. Should have listened to the dame.

[Markus Innocenti · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's quite a lot of hype about this one — along the lines of "the hardest-boiled crime novel you will ever read" — but that doesn't mean it's true, nor does it mean that the book is a classic. And it's not. Breathless, unrelenting — yes. But it reads like parody. It's really hard to keep track of the various characters — not least because new ones keep popping up every few pages. The plotting is wildly all over the place, with events and characters coming out of nowhere and heading off in the same direction. Every imaginable trope of hard-boiled fiction is included — but not lovingly. Overall, it felt like a joke — and I suspect the title was just that — an admission by the author that he was writing it just as fast as his fingers could fly over the keys of his trusty Smith-Corona. Cain doesn't even stop to hit 'return' and make a visual space on the page to take his action from one location to another — that's how fast he's going or, perhaps, how little he cares. Classic, no. A curiosity at best.

[Mitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bleak story of murder and mayhem in 1932 Los Angeles. Fast One is very short novel that still manages to be populated with countless characters, nearly all of them ruthless criminals who appear for a few pages before gunned down.

This book has deep flaws. It was originally serialized in a magazine which gives the first half an odd episodic quality. The action is so relentless, so manic it becomes numb. The plot was seemingly invented from minute to minute. At times it appears that an overarching story will emerge, only to have Everyone die. Pointless death and violence befall virtually every character, often perpetrated by the enigmatic, nihilistic protagonist Gerry Kells. I am not sure if he is a brilliantly dark antihero or a cartoony runaway murder train. Is it cool that he has apparently no motivations, or just dull?

I don’t know what to rate this book. For all it’s issues, in its time it was clearly something new and invigorating that helped define a genre of fiction. 2 - 4 stars