Stop This Man!

by Peter Rabe

When the thirty-six pounds of gold he steals from a lab turns out to be radioactive, down-and-out thief Tony Catell has to stay one step ahead of the FBI while trying desperately to find someone willing to take it off his hands.

Genres: Crime, Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Pulp, Ebooks, Hard Boiled

221 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Peter Rabe aka Peter Rabinowitsch, was a German American writer who also used the nom de plumes Marco Malaponte and J.T. MacCargo (though not all of the latter's books were by him). Rabe was the author of over 30 books, mostly of crime fiction, published between 1955 and 1975.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tony Catell stole a gold ingot from a university science lab. Too bad the thing was radioactive. Now Tony has to get to LA to unload the radioactive gold bar on someone. The FBI is on Tony's trail, as is an alcoholic ex-lover. Can Tony's syndicate connections get him out of trouble? And what about his young lover?

Sometimes, I wonder how they pick the reprints for the Hard Case series. While this one was well written and fairly exciting, the main character wasn't likeable at all, especially in regard to the way he treats women. The way Lila takes his crap makes him even more unlikeable. The idea of having a radioactive gold bar and not knowing what to do with it was new but not enough to make me enjoy the rest of the story. Once Tony got to LA, the story meandered a bit.

While it was an exciting read, I didn't particularly enjoy it. 2.5 out of 5 at best.

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Career criminal Tony Catell steals a gold ingot which happens to be radioactive. Not deterred by the ramifications and danger to his health he proceeds to shop the bounty across the US in search of a big payday. Leaving a trail of bodies in his wake, Tony finds himself mixed up in mob business and the primary target of the FBI.

STOP THIS MAN! Could’ve been really good, rather author Peter Rabe seemed to have suffered from a case of complacency in the mediocre. At times I wasn’t sure which direction the story was heading; was it an FBI manhunt themed plot? A heist novel? A thriller that threatened a larger radioactive fallout? A mob/organised crime book? Even after finishing, the plot devise wasn’t overly clear.Had Rabe focused on one or two of these elements, the flow and direction would’ve read better imo.

Despite its short comings, STOP THIS MAN! was an OK read. Not one of the better books from Hardcase Crime but worth a look for collector completists.

[Dfordoom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Rabe’s Stop This Man! is a hardboiled crime thriller dealing with the theft of radioactive gold. Now that surely has to be a fun combination, and so it proves.

Tony Catell is a big-time criminal, or at least he was until he got sent down for an eight-year stretch in the penitentiary. Now he’s more or less forgotten, a has-been, and he’s pushing fifty. But Tony Catell is not finished yet. No sir. He’s not going to be a nobody. He’s going to be a big shot again. When one of his few remaining contacts, an old hand named Schumacher, sets up a job for him he jumps at it.

The job is simple. There’s an ingot of solid gold sitting in a government research facility and the security is laughably insufficient. For a pro like Tony it’s easy money. The robbery goes like clockwork and Catell sets off with his gold to meet Schumacher, but there’s one little snag. Schumacher forget to mention this gold is radioactive.

Catell thinks the whole radioactive story is a lot of hooey. As far as he’s concerned gold is gold and he’s unimpressed when Schumacher tries to convince him that this gold is going to be very difficult indeed to unload. Catell thinks Schumacher is just spinning him a line. He’ll set up a deal himself to sell the gold. And while he’s at it he steals Schumacher’s girlfriend Selma. Selma turns out to be a lot like the gold - not really such a good deal after all. She’s an alcoholic, and a self-pitying one at that. But after eight years in prison Tony just wants a woman.

Eventually Tony heads east, to LA, where he has a contact lined up. Once again things are more complicated than he hoped. His contact, Smith, is a big operator and drives a hard bargain. He’ll take the gold off Catell’s hands, but Catell has to do one heist for him first. There are further headaches, with one of Smith’s stooges taking an extreme dislike to him. But there’s one compensation. He meets Lily. She’s a singer. She’s twenty years old. Catell has never had any use for women apart from sex but now something strange is happening to him. He has a strong desire to settle down with Lily. In fact he’s contemplating marrying her.

Unfortunately Tony has more and more problems to deal with, big problems. The FBI is organising a mammoth manhunt for him. They’re not keen on the idea of hoodlums wandering about the countryside carrying ingots of radioactive gold, or radioactive anything for that matter. And Tony isn’t feeling so good. He’s been feeling pretty bad ever since he stole the gold. Nausea, headaches, weakness, all kinds of stuff. Naturally he discounts the idea it might have something to do with the radioactive ingot he’s been carrying about in his car. What do these scientists know anyway? The fact that quite a few people he’s been in contact with have been not feeling so good as well seems to Tony to be a mere coincidence. But things are starting to close in on Tony.

I have no idea if there really is such a thing as radioactive gold but it doesn’t really matter. The gold is merely what Alfred Hitchcock used to call a McGuffin. It means nothing in itself but it serves as a useful engine to drive the plot. It’s something both seductive and deadly for Catell to become totally obsessed by, and it provides a reason for the relentless FBI pursuit of him.

Catell is hardly a sympathetic character. He’s violent, selfish, ruthless and uncaring. At the same time his single-mindedness and his steely determination make him a fascinating protagonist. The odds are increasingly stacked against him but he’s a tough nut and we end up believing that if anyone can prevail against these odds it’s Tony Catell.

There’s plenty of action and Rabe lays on the hardboiled atmosphere nice and thick.

Recommended for hardboiled crime enthusiasts.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

So Tony Catell, straight out of the joint, steals a block of gold. It was an easy job, the research lab where it was kept having lousy security. This gold is his future. Except he can't get rid of it, because it's been irradiated and it kills everyone who comes into contact with it (although Tony seems to last longer than anyone else). "Irradiated gold," a scientist solemnly tells the FBI agent, "has a half-life of one day. That means that after a day has passed, its radioactivity has reduced itself by half; the following day there is again a reduction to half of what was left, and so on. What remains, young man, is not gold. What remains is pure stable mercury." Sort of like mediaeval alchemy in reverse, I guess. So Tony flees across the country, the FBI hot on his tail, following the trail of death and disease from radiation poisoning he leaves in his wake. Along the way he seduces a few women (mostly by hitting and humiliating them, because you know how much women like that sort of thing, at least when the right man does it), buying progressively junkier cars as his money runs out (he apparently never considers stealing them) and running into a sadistic small-town sheriff, before ending up in the noir capital of the world, Los Angeles, where he goes to nightclubs, watches risque floor shows, meets up with a crime boss who might take his hot merchandise off his hands, and gets into fights. But his obsession with the gold never slackens. So a pretty standard hardboiled tale, with a dose of radiation to heat it up.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based on the other reviews, I'm surprised I enjoyed this as much as I did. STOP THIS MAN! may be a bit hokey and thin on plot, but the writing is crisp and the dialog delightfully hardboiled. At first, the characters seem a bit flat, but they end up playing off each other in really interesting ways once the story gets going.
STOP THIS MAN! felt so much like an old noir movie that my imagination insisted on screening it in black & white. I loved the old-fashioned sleaziness of it all, though the rampant mysogyny was a bit over the top. In this book, sexual assault practically qualifies as a "meet cute," and one gets the distinct impression that Gloria Steinem won't be praising author Peter Rabe for his depiction of women any time soon.
I'm going to break a personal rule by using a popular phrase that I really hate: "It is what it is." Somehow, in this case, the description feels apt. People hoping for some forgotten literary gem will be disappointed; but, for connoisseurs of cheesy 1950's pulp fiction, STOP THIS MAN! is radioactive gold.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a nice little post-war fear novel. Frank, thief extraordinaire (and very lightly-drawn character) steals a 35-pound (or so) gold nugget from a physics lab. This nugget has been used in nuclear experiments and is quite radioactive. So Frank, in is desperation to avoid being caught and sent *back* to prison, leaves a trail of sickness and death across the country.

The book is more entertaining for its 1950's zeitgeist than it is for the story itself. So little was known about radiation poisoning at the time that obvious symptoms are wrong or missing. And the characters speak of radioactivity with utter terror. There are gangsters and molls and pickpockets and seductive young dancers galore here as well. Again, not a great story, but one that was fun to read for the difference in attitudes 50 years later.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who was Peter Rabe? He was born Peter Rabinowitsch in 1921 and, in 1938, he and his family fled Nazi Germany, escaping just months before Kristallnacht. They settled in the Midwest and Americanized the last name to Rabe. Rabe wrote thirty books, almost all of which were crime fiction between 1955 and 1975. Stop This Man! was the first of his crime novels to be published in 1955 and he published at least two more that same year, Benny Muscles In and A Shroud for Jesso. Other crime novels by Rabe include A House in Naples, Kill the Boss Goodbye, Dig My Grave Deep, and My Lovely Executioner.
His books are not filled with heavy descriptions. The reader gets a feel for who the characters are through the action and dialogue. This book is typical of the crime pulp genre in the fifties, except that it is better written than most and stands the passage of time quite well.

Tony Cantrell has finished his sentence and Otto Schumacher has a job for him. The job involves stealing a gold brick en route from Fort Knox to a research laboratory, where it is to be subjected to radiation. Back then in the fifties, atomic energy and radiation were big things on everyone's mind. They hadn't gotten used to such things yet. The job goes off without a hitch, except that the gold brick leaves a line of destruction in its wake. Starting with the rooming house in which Cantrell spends a night or two, people around him start getting sick, nauseous, everywhere he goes. And the feds are after him or at least after someone who they know is carting around this radioactive mess.
Schumaker realizes too late that the gold is no good and that he can't unload it and doesn't want it around. He certainly doesn't want Cantrell hiding it under his floorboards, getting him and his squeeze all radioactive sick and burning.

The alternating storyline between Cantrell's movements and the federal agents who are on his tail works just fine.
The entire atmosphere of the book feels dark and gloomy, no peaches and roses.

A lot of the action takes place in Los Angeles as Cantrell tried to unload the merchandise and finds that the gangsters he is doing business with will pay the price, but also require that he does some work for the organization. There are shootouts, heists, bare knuckle brawls, fancy nightclubs, tawdry bums on skid row, double crosses, and a shining romance with the young cigarette girl.

The story moves along at a great pace and is simply a great read. Rabe does a great job of mixing some humor with tough-nosed noir action and there simply is not a dull moment at all in this book. Great reading.

[Ralph · Rating 5 out of 5]

In many ways, this book is as surprising as its author. “Stop This Man!” is a hard crime novel about an obsessively independent hood’s encounter with organized crime overlaid with an FBI manhunt for the hood, who has stolen an ingot of gold. Normally the Feds would not spend so much time and effort on such a case, but the gold was accidentally irradiated by some woolly-brained university boffin, so anyone coming into contact with it is likely to curl up and die. As a manhunt book, it’s excellent, but as a crime novel exploring a ruthless and obsessive personality it’s even better. That ability to delve so deep into such a deformed personality is not surprising when you consider that Peter Rabe (born Peter Rabinowitsch) possessed a Ph.D. in psychology and was the author of a well-respected textbook on psychotherapy. What is surprising, however, is that this was his first novel, which was immediately snapped up by prolific paperback publisher Gold Medal, along with two other books written by Rabe in 1955. Rabe vividly brings to life the desperate and brutal people inhabiting the criminal worlds of Chicago and Los Angeles, but he also works magic with minor characters the hood meets in his flight from Chicago to the West Coast, whether it’s a doxy lush with a romantic fixation or a small town sheriff whose life is defined by his cruelty and hatred of outsiders. After this scintillating introduction to Peter Rabe, I will make it a point to hunt down his other books, and will probably even watch the two episodes of the old 1960s Batman television series for which he wrote the screenplays.

[Rupert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ganesh bless Hard Case for reprinting such entertaining, obscure pulp reads like this. The originals, if you can find them, are pricey and the paper often is the kind that will get all up in your sinuses and nest. I just hope they get around to all of Peter Rabe's work, particularly The Box. That's my favorite and it reminds me of Paul Bowles if he got a little more seedy and hungover, instead of just highed up on kif.
This title starts out a little slow, feels a little done before at first, but then you start to feel for the anti-hero and the underworlds he travels through are finely detailed. Also, it works as a great metaphor for fevered capitalism.

[Jesse · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent little potboiler, indebted to the movie version of Kiss Me Deadly, in which a small-time hood ends up with an irradiated gold brick and totes it around with him unto the ends of the earth and beyond love, caring, or friendship. Some nice hard-boiled bits and some clangy wimmen problems, particularly an icky s/m subtext where he humiliates this young woman and she, of course, likes it. Bleh.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book on the low end of Hard Case's quality spectrum, this has a creative plot, that is unfortunately far from the scientific facts. The characters are all kind of annoying, with the exception of The Turtle, who is kind of amazingly funny. In any case, there are way better books in this series than this one.

[Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, I really hated this book. I read the whole thing and I have, like, no idea what the f**k happened. Other than that Peter Rabe apparently pulled the "science" out of his ass.

[Oli Turner]

The fifty-eighth @hard case crime novel finished #stopthisman! By #peterrabe Published in 1955. It’s short and very fast paced. Featuring stolen gold, an fbi manhunt, cross country road trips, an insane sheriff, a small town jail break, a trail of death, a former wrestler/magician turned pickpocket, a couple of different heists, a jilted lover bent on revenge and a young dancer/singer caught up in the middle of it all. Lots of great building blocks but it didn’t quite work for me personally, the protagonist is efficient and ruthless but just left me feeling cold and I didn’t care much what happened to him. A couple of the side characters seemed much more interesting. And of course another great cover from #robertmcginnis

[Bill Telfer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the Hard Case Crime imprint, and their wonderful habit of rescuing lost and obscure crime fiction. But this one, from 1955, was not my favorite. Written horribly, clearly for the "per word" check, I really had to struggle through it. Sorry, Mr. Rabe. I hope they paid you your five hundred bucks, or whatever, and it helped to buy the groceries. P.U.

[Duncan McCurdie · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exciting read. Another great find from Hard Case Crime.

[Paschalis]

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[Dave Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5⭐️

This one just really didn’t grab me at all.

[Aaron Badgley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book full on the most unlikeable characters you will ever meet.

[Girard Bowe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Peter Rabe's first published novel of fiction doesn't measure up to his later work. Only for completists.

[John Stanley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably not a bad book in its day but nothing special by today's standards. Pretty slow, for the most part, although the ending picked up a bit. Still, nothing special.

[Geicodave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lean and mean noir

The characters in the book are mostly one dimensional and the author makes no effort to explain their thinking. They simply do. The plot is not complicated, either. The book is just lean and mean noir.

[Craig Childs · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel opens with Tony Catell, an ex-con straight out of his second prison stint, who has just robbed a chunk of gold from a government atomic research facility. He does not realize the gold is radioactive and is literally killing everyone he meets, including himself. The FBI is hot on his heels and his contacts for fencing the stolen ingot are getting scarce.

Peter Rabe might have been the James Patterson or Harlan Coben of his day. The pages just flew by. The narrative was exciting and engaging.

The story was also preposterous. For instance, the scientific properties of radiated gold seemed highly fluid. Some people died nearly immediately after light exposure, others withstood massive doses for a very long time.

The book has a very episodic feel:
- The one where Catell escapes a double-cross and leaves his partner dead.
- The one where Catell is captured by a sadistic Arizona sheriff.
- The one where Catell is forced to perform a heist for a Los Angeles mobster.
- The one where Catell flees through the desert.

I first heard the name of Peter Rabe when I read a remark by the late Donald Westlake, who cited Rabe as one of his early inspirations particularly for his ability to write tight scenes that always served more than a single purpose. Each scene developed character in addition to driving the plot forward.

Next time I heard the name was an anecdote related by Lawrence Block in his book After Hours. Block noted Rabe had been a popular crime writer for many years, but after hitting a mid-career stall, he fell back on his training as a psychologist and exited the writing game for good. (Block's point was that it is sometimes better if writers do not have fallback plans. The world may be poorer for lacking the stories Rabe never wrote.)

My own assessment would be that Rabe is entertaining but not a giant in the field. Just enjoy the ride and do not worry about the implausibilities, the coincidences, or the occasional character who acts in direct opposition to his own self-interest!

Truthfully, I would rather see Hard Case Crime bring out more Peter Rabe reprints in the future rather than more Erle Stanley Gardner or Mickey Spillane.

[David Merrill · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are times when I'm in the mood for noir. It usually happens when there's a lot going on in my life and I just don't have the head space for the Science Fictuon and Fantasy I usually like to read. At those times, I reach for Horror or Noir and right now Noir is the ticket. When that happens I usually pull out the Hard Case Crime I haven't read yet. As I've said many times before, you can't go wrong with Hard Case Crime. Stop This Man! hadn't been in print for 45 years. I won't say this was my favorite HCC book, but it delivered what I was looking for, a retro feel, a crook on the run, a fem fatale, enough forward movement to pull me along and a writing style that doesn't get in the way. This one even had the added attraction of nuclear radiation from the atomic era thrown in (the book is from 1955). All in all an enjoyable read. Next up is another HCC by Michael Crichton, writing as John Lange.

[L · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, the premise was good and the variety of characters was nice. Rabe's writing was off, though, the characters lacked depth and appeal. I just couldn't seem to keep up with anyone or anything.

[Glenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although fast paced and well written (Rabe's staccato dialog awesome), the initial plot gets sidetracked too often and becomes episodic. As a result, the stolen gold plot line disappears for about 100 pages.

Still, the gritty pulp writing makes me want to search out other Rabe books.

[Bradley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dated but readable - #58 of the Hard Case Crime series that I've been reading.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was a new writer for me and i found this novel noir completely engrossing.couldn't put it down.

[Benjamin · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the worst Hard Case Crime novels I have read to date.