A Time of Predators

by Joe Gores

Otto Penzler and the Mystery Writers of America Present A Time of Predators by Joe Gores, winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel

The gang was restless, just looking for idle fun. They roughed up a man they thought was a homosexual--but their game got out of hand and their victim was blinded.

It was Paula Halstead's bad luck to witness the attack and catch a glimpse of one of the boys. After they got through with her, she killed herself.

The police have no leads and can't find the culprits. Paula's husband hires a private investigator to do what the police haven't been able to-with no success.

Curt Halstead refuses to give up; he will have his vengeance on the men who raped and tortured his wife, even if it means entering into their world of sex, violence, and murder.

Genres: Mystery, Crime

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Joe Gores (1931-2011) was the author of the acclaimed DKA series of street-level crime and detection, as well as the stunning suspense novels Dead Man and Menaced Assassin.

He served in the U.S. Army - writing biographies of generals at the Pentagon - was educated at the University of Notre Dame and Stanford, and spent twelve years as a San Francisco private investigator. The author of dozens of novels, screenplays, and television scripts, he won three Edgar Allan Poe Awards and Japan's Maltese Falcon Award.

Reviews

[James Lawther · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joe Gores’ first novel won him an Edgar award. He tells a nasty little story of stupid actions and their rampant escalation. Whilst at its heart, this is a simple revenge story, Gores rolls it out deftly. Perspectives alternate between the thugs and the professor. He depicts the parallel views of events, drawing out the anxiety as both sides realise that the affair has grown way out of proportion.

Gores’ use of words is sparse to the point of leanness, he never uses two words when one will do. This gives his writing a page-turning urgency that is tense and absorbing. His depiction of the arrogance of the teenage gang leader is brutal and chilling.

Written in the late 1960s, the sexual politics are dated but the writing isn’t explicit. Gores doesn’t delight in bloodshed and revenge. Instead, he plays on the psychological drama of the inescapable knock-on of events.

The final scenes are psychologically grisly, leaving you wondering if revenge is ever clever. Who is the predator, the hunter or the prey?

Read a little more here: https://crimebooks.uk/book/a-time-of-...

[Donald · Rating 3 out of 5]

The description of Paula’s rape is brutal. And devastating.

“He was going to find the boys who had raped Paula. Find them, break them, physically and spiritually. Make them crawl and grovel, mew with terror and pain. If the law couldn’t touch them, he would be his own predator.”

“And I’m saying that if a bunch of guys push another guy off a window ledge, they can’t blame him for whatever he does on the way down.”

Definitely a revenge tale, but a little more tempered and humane than the kind that I like. And definitely better than those four animals deserved.

[Bill Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gores' first novel and a very good one. Curt Halsted pursues a circuitous route to track down the four "predators" responsible for the arbitrary beating and blinding of an innocent man the subsequent brutalization of his wife, who was a witness to the crime. Halstead is a professor whose world view on crime and criminals has been determined and nurtured within the strictures of academia. After the police conduct a fruitless investigation and advise him that if the perpetrators are juveniles, little punishment will come their way, it is clear to him that resolution will come only through his own efforts. He is at first hamstrung by indecision based on a number of factors including his own guilt. He eventually resolves to pursue the gang. As a former commando in WWII, he possesses the skills for killing and wonders if he can apply them when the time comes.

This is by no means a linear search and destroy revenge tale. Gores presents the viewpoints of two of the marauders and that of a woman who is duped into assisting them by the leader of the gang. The ending is the most interesting part of the book as we see all sides of Halstead's nature come into play. Also interesting is the police detective assigned to the case, who views Halstead's quest as an incursion on his own bailiwick and seeks to punish Halstead for pursuing the gang and holding him legally accountable for their fate.

I found it interesting to contrast this book with Brian Garfield's DEATH WISH (1972) and Leigh Brackett's THE TIGER AMONG US (1957), also stories concerned with the complex emotions that accompany revenge and frustration with a society, that to the protagonists, seems to be in the throes of disintegration. Three very different books and viewpoints on a common theme.

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really enjoyed some of the authors other titles like "Hammett" and "Spade and Archer" so i was very disapointed that this book was such trash. Unfortunately it was not even so trashy it was good it was just really bad. The plot itself is not so bad as a college professor seeks to get revenge on a gang of youths but it is so badly and distastefully executed.

SPOILER ALERT ALTHOUGH THIS IS ALL ON THE BOOK JACKET.

The college professor`s wife committs sucide after being gang raped largely if i understood it correctly because she was ashamed of enjoying it. Look I know better to go to a 60s noir story for PC entertainment but the best noir thrillers are good because they are cynical but hyper realistic. This read more like one mans grubby little fantasy. There is a whole more stuff which is either stupid, strains credulity or in most cases both, which i will not repeat here in case anyone wants to make the journey themselves. I would save the time and read the authors later works.

On a side note anything with an intro by otto penzler that i have ever read as been rubbish.

[Nicole Hazlett · Rating 1 out of 5]

I could have found the hokey macho narrative funny in a time-piece sort of way, if the whole premise of the book wasn't an absurd rape fantasy written for men and by a man who clearly doesn't particularly understand or respect women.

Basic plot: woman in loving relationship with her husband (but who can't give her an orgasm) witnesses the brutal beating of a man by 4 young dudes out looking to rough up homosexuals. The boys track her down and gang rape her in order to shut her up, which causes her to finally have her first orgasm, ever. Then she kills herself because she is so ashamed. Her special forces husband sets out to avenge her death, ultimately creeping through the woods with oil on his face for camouflage and a commando knife in the back of his pants.

Yeah. It's that bad. The best thing about this book was reading the worst bits to my friends as I came across them at the beach this weekend, cackling incredulously at the absurdity together and then using the pages to start a beach fire at night.

[Ani Rusie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Itis a valid book. Definitely didn’t get bored, if you’re looking for deeper meanings and explanations of human nature it can be found I guess. But most of all it won’t feel like a duty to keep reading, the book is genuinely interesting.

[Bobby Mathews · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like a lot of Joe Gores' stuff, but he has a bad habit of fridging female characters in order to motivate his male characters. That knocks this one down at least one star.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the blurbs on the back of this book simply says, "Taught... effective," which is a good way to describe Gores' writing style as a whole, but particularly this book. The synopsis given here is pretty accurate - this is a basic revenge plot novel. That being said, because this book came out in the late 60's, I was afraid it was going to be like "Death Wish" or some of the other examples coming into vogue at that time of what I like to call "vigilante porn." It wasn't. The protagonist, Curt Halstead, is definitely a wronged man, but he remains fairly thoughtful, and doesn't revel gleefully in revenge.

Minuses: The gender politics of this novel are fairly chauvinistic. Also, I've noticed a bad habit in Gore's work of over-writing various characters' ethnic vernacular. Most of the characters in the novel are white suburbanites, so it's not as noticeable. One is a Mexican-American, and while Gores is fairly restrained, a couple of times he attributes lines to him that sound like they're coming from an old serial Western. However, these issues do not detract significantly from the overall quality of the book.

[Ronald Roseborough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe Gores' first novel is a winner. It grabbed the Edgar Award for Best First Novel of 1970. It is a very hard hitting, eye opening story of the transformation of a middle aged college professor, who's wife commits suicide after being raped in her home, by a gang of teenage predators. The professor, at first unaware of his wife's rape, tries unsuccessfully to get the police to conduct a thorough investigation of his wife's death. The book follows his transformation in gut wrenching scenes as he struggles with his wife's death, his search for her killers and his own predatory instincts. A great read.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is Joe Gores's first novel, and an Edgar winner, and it comes with a lot of hype. It reads a bit dated 40 years after its publication date (1970). I tried to put myself back in that period when reading it, and as such it's a lean, fast-moving hard-boiled example of the "ordinary guy driven to revenge" story that's been done and re-done so many times in the last 40 years that this book probably suffers a bit through no fault of its own. I enjoyed it--and it's memorable--and I wanted to read an early Gores prior to moving on (eventually) to his Hammett-related stuff, so this one fit the bill.

[Melani · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't read much of this genre, so I have little with which to compare this novel. It read like a television series with a fast-paced plot and inauthentic dialog. Upon finishing the book, I read that Gores wrote for many popular TV crime and cop shows, so there you go. And, two gang rapes? Really? I would need much better writing to get rid of the idea that the author is merely playing out his own fantasies.

[Clint · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Modern" novel, now 45 years old, about a man who decides to revenge an attack on his wife, nevertheless seemed very dated in its language, social mores and reaction of characters.

[Darby Puckett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!