The Killer

by Wade Miller

Jake Farrow, safari-guide to big game hunters, was brought all the way from Africa to kill a killer. He came to track down a man, pit his jungle-sense, his cold cunning, his deadly gun against a ruthless murderer. He had to weave his way not only through tangled wood and trackless swamp but through dens of vice in big city underworlds, and through the denser jungles of women's passions, to get at his prey.

Genres: Fiction

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

See also Bob Wade

Wade Miller is a pen name of two authors, Robert Allison “Bob” Wade (1920-present) and H. Bill Miller (1920-61). The two also wrote under several other pseudonyms, including Whit Masterson and Will Daemer.

Received the Shamus Award, "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) in 1988.

Reviews

[Still · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damn near perfect action thriller.
There's an unfortunate romantic detour for about 20 pages that just ruins the entire flow of the narrative but as soon as it passes, the novel regains its momentum.

This is a chase thriller. It starts a bit slow.
We're introduced to a white African safari-guide (Jake Farrow) whose license to hunt in Kenya after killing game on a preserve has been suspended for one year.
Luckily he's hired by a wealthy American known as "Stennis", a big game hunter Farrow knows from safaris past.
Stennis retains Farrow's services for a secret job in the U.S.

This novel was originally published in 1951. It's the most entertaining novel by the brilliant team writing as "Wade Miller" I've ever read.

Highest Recommendation!

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jacob Farrow is a big game hunter in Kenya, perhaps the greatest and most determined of all big game hunters. He is offered an impossible sum to track down and kill the most elusive and most dangerous quarry of all. In a chase that takes him around the world, Farrow must track down the most feared bank robber in America. Through the swamps of the backwoods swamp, to the highest towers of the greatest cities, to the Great Plains, to the deserts, Farrow goes. Along the way, Farrow tangles with sexy swamp sirens whose every movement makes him sweat. He fights with big city toughs and finds himself on the wrong side of the law. The book does an excellent job of capturing Farrow's moral quandaries as well as his laser-beam like focus on his job. Not a word is misplaced in this book. It is expertly written. The book opens with a rifle on the plains of Africa. It continues with a girl with thick blonde hair, "the tawny yellow color of a young lioness," but no dress on. The mere sight of her made him feel like an animal. He feels all of time slipping by him. But there is another femme fatale in this book, "sleek and sinuous as a python." The book is filled with powerful emotions of revenge, of lust, of betrayal. It moves forward at breakneck speed. It's really good.

[L J Field · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a poorly conceived novel. Stennis asks his friend, Jacob—a professional hunter from Africa—to track down the man who had killed his son during a robbery and kill him. Stennis wants to be in on the kill when the murderer—a man named Bocock—is found. The scenes change rapidly as Jacob searches for him, from Chicago to California and places in-between. The coincidences, including one huge one that is not even attempted at explanation, are ridiculous. After finishing the story one has to ask “who is ‘The Killer’, Bocock or Jacob?”

[Dartharagorn · Rating 2 out of 5]

The overall storyline was fun. Unfortunately there were a couple plot holes and inconsistencies that were troublesome. That pulled you out of the story. I'm not sorry I read it and didn't hate it. That being said I doubt that I'll revisit it nor would I recommend this to a friend.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jacob Farrow, safari guide to big-game hunters, is stuck lounging around his Kenyan villa after a bad decision lost him his license. So when a young lawyer to a mysterious client shows up and requisitions his talents to hunt unspecified game on another continent, Farrow takes the opportunity. It turns out his new employer is a former client named Stennis, a hunter he leads on safari every year; Stennis is a bank-owner whose son died during a robbery by the famed Clel Bocock and his group of bank-robbing ruffians. And this grieving father wants Farrow to find Bocock and kill him: a new spin on the term manhunt.

Of course, the police are having a hard time tracking Bocock already, but Farrow’s too prideful to walk away from a hunt or back down from a job. His hunt will take him across America: from the Georgia swamps to the Chicago rail-yards, to the Midwestern jail of some overzealous sheriffs, and beyond, heading further and further West to catch his quarry.

There’s a lot to like about The Killer, not the least of which is its "most dangerous game" premise. The action is credible; the characters are interesting; the plot engaging and tense without being speedy or over-complicated; the writing is solid if not exceptional. The final showdown is a striking scene, and the many moments that build up to it are brilliant. Most of all, I found it a damn fun book to read. The Killer has a few aspects I wish it were stronger at---some elements are a little coincidental, other elements are rooted in the book's now-archaic 1950s origins. I still think it’s a solid, respectable novel that many vintage mystery readers will find engaging and thrilling. Make no bones about it, this is a fine book.

If you’re trying to get into vintage ’50s crime-noir novels, Wade Miller is an excellent starting point, and The Killer is just shy of fantastic.

Full review found here.

[Alonzo Church · Rating 4 out of 5]

An ace hunter in Kenya has had his license suspended for poaching. He’s bored. Money is a bit of a problem. He’s never been a drunk before but, when there is nothing else to do…a mysterious client with a proposition comes. Since you can’t hunt game, he asks, why not hunt a man? The pay is good. The reference he offers is his best client over the years. Why not? The prey involved is a public enemy — he needs killing.

A good but flawed Gold Medal, this one starts with a slow but intriguing build up, and then becomes a series of chases, linked by a series of outlandish coincidences and an improbable romance that brings the action to a stop right in the middle for 30 or so pages.I have a problem with the underlying crime plot that drives the action (it makes no sense, really) but like the lead character and much of the characterization. The high concept of the plot — a bored guy becoming a hunter of men rather than beasts — is handled well. Our hero is ignorant of some aspects of finding an outlaw, but extremely good at tracking them.

Worth a read and I will give this author another try.

[Paperback Papa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wade Miller was actually two people: Robert Allison Wade and H. Bill Miller. They met at violin lessons when they were twelve and became friends. After surviving World War II, they decided to try their hand at writing books together. Their first novel was published in 1946. "The Killer" was my first taste of their work.

This novel is from 1951. It's about a gangster who goes on a killing spree across the country. When the police can't find him to arrest him, the father of one of his victims hires a professional hunter from Africa to come to America and stalk the murderer. I believe the killer of the title refers to the African hunter, though both the hunter and the villain are killers.

To keep from giving away too much, I'll just say that there's a very cleverly conceived love interest for the African hunter that creates all kinds of tension and elevates the story. The ending is somewhat predictable, or maybe it was just the ending I was hoping for. Either way, it was satisfying.

I don't know what writing process Mr. Wade and Mr. Miller used, but it worked. The writing in this book is extremely good. I highly recommend it.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Killer is a 1951 novel written by "Wade Miller," a pseudonym used by two collaborating authors, Bob Wade and Bill Miller. I read this in a two-novel compilation with another "Wade Miller" novel, Devil on Two Sticks, rather than in a stand-alone book.

The Killer is an interestingly ambiguous title. There is more than one person in the book who would qualify as "the killer." The book might also have been called Manhunt. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "manhunt" as "an organized and usually intensive hunt for a person and especially for one charged with a crime." That kind of manhunt takes place in this book in the efforts of the authorities to capture a bank robber and murderer, Clel Bocock. At the same time, however, Bocock is the subject of another manhunt; Jake Farrow, a well-known and respected hunter in Africa, is recruited to hunt down and murder Bocock.*

During the course of a bank robbery, Bocock had shot and killed the son of the president of the bank. The president hires Farrow. Farrow has qualms about becoming a hired killer but he puts them aside (rather too easily, in my opinion).

There are already some excellent plot summaries in other reviews, so I will end mine here.

This is a fine thriller but it has serious flaws. A very small point, but the character of Osher the lawyer is too intriguing to disappear so early in the book. The main female character, Marget, falls in love much too quickly. The coincidence by which Farrow locates Clel is hard to accept, as are Farrow's first two meetings with Marget. Also, as I mentioned, I think Farrow's quick acquiescence to committing murder makes it hard to respect or care for Farrow.

But the book moves quickly, some of the characters are quite entertaining (especially Farrow and Teresa), and the action moves from place to place with no confusion. I don't think this is a great story, but it is certainly a good one.



*My apology to the earlier reviewer named Chris. I didn't read your "manhunt" comment until after I had written this. I am leaving it in my review, because I think it's an interesting observation (which you made years before I did.)

[Trekscribbler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up, I wasn’t a big reader, but when I did read it was almost always something relatively hard-boiled. I preferred the old-school private detective novels – the ones that always start with a big death that fuels a mission of vengeance for a modern day knight in shining armor (or trench coat) who’ll stop at nothing to see justice served. The trouble was I also grew up in a small town whose library didn’t offer up the best assortment of said novels, so I had to really hunt for the good stuff. Thankfully, some of these older books have found new life in reprints, digital form, or other collections; otherwise, I’d never have heard of Wade Miller – a pseudonym for a two-man writing team who produced some of the smartest prose this side of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Mickey Spillane.

(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the kind of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last paragraph for my final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)

Jacob ‘Jake’ Farrow is a big game hunter who, after running away from home at a young age, has spent the bulk of his adult life perfecting his skills of tracking and killing the wildest prey known to man. Finding his way to Africa, he’s closed himself off to the greater world outside, choosing instead to sell his services as a guide for like-minded professionals wanting to go on the ultimate safari. However, when an old client of his sends a caller to his hut on the sub-continent, Farrow learns that he’s yet to truly face ‘the most dangerous game’: man. Against his best instincts, Farrow agrees to travel to America and take up the hunt for an elusive fugitive – a wild bank-robber who killed his client’s son. But not even Jake can predict what’s in store for him in the great stomping grounds that have become the United States!

THE KILLER is a brisk read, woven together on a tight central premise of vengeance. Farrow knows what he’s doing isn’t quite right, but he’s compelled to do it on behalf of his troubled friend. Along the way, he meets Clel Bocock’s comely young wife – a Southern belle with a penchant for being in the right place at the wrong time – and their turbulent partnership fuels much of the emotional angst Farrow struggles with. Can he do what he’s been sent to do? More importantly: should he do it? As he grows closer to Marget Bocock, he begins to feel things he’s never experienced, not only love but compassion for making the right choice for society-at-large. For a man shackled by his own rules (namely those governing the hunt), Farrow is a quick study in matters of the heart.

To its detriment, THE KILLER is dated by some of the social mores or niceties of its era. Written in 1951 – clearly a time when few would tolerate an open out-of-wedlock relationship – Jake and Marget’s relationship almost magically blossoms into a full-blown love affair so quickly it’s barely realistic by today’s standards. This isn’t to say that they wouldn’t have consummated their feelings for one another because they did; it’s just that there’s an insistence on both characters to express their newfound “love” for one another when today’s less stringent social requirements would more likely label it “lust.” This isn’t to say that they’re an illegitimate pairing; rather, it’s just a statement on what authors either deliberately or casually stressed as a whirlwind romance was little more than fodder for the minds of men captivated by such fiction.

Also – without divulging too specific a plot point – there’s a few significant developments that push the narrative forward which are entirely too coincidental to be taken as anything other than improbable convenience. Farrow happens to be in the right place to observe too many events critical to his task than would be tolerated by today’s jaundiced readers; it’s nice to “think” the tracker actually “tracked” his prey down, but the whole thing starts and ends with occurrences a bit too statistically unlikely for me to swallow.

Still, Wade Miller – as a writing team – craft a fast-paced hard-boiled delight that this reader was thrilled to have discovered.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. If you like true, old-school, hard-boiled prose, then you’re going to love Wade Miller’s THE KILLER. It has a hardened hero – a big game hunter who answered to the name of Jacob Farrow – on a serpentine road trip to locate Clel Bocock and his band of bankrobbers. It’s a mission for vengeance with the bounty offered by a grief-stricken father who saw his son shot dead in front of his own eyes. Plus, it’s got a femme fatale and a Southern belle both competing for their share of the action. You couldn’t ask for anything more.

[Tim Ackerly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Merely good. An interesting rethinking of the premise of Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game."