Never Kill a Cop

Rocky Steele

by John B. West

Signet 1st D2572 1964 edition paperback vg+ In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

128 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1961

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Jure · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a scene where some bad guy ambushes our man in his car. The usual stuff, threatening him under the gun and "advising" him to back off. We've been through this a zillion times before. But here, once the villain leaves the car, Rocky promptly slams his heap into reverse (one time I was thankful for the automatic transmission!) and runs the poor bastard over! I couldn't believe what I was reading, and I still cannot decide what to think about it. Is Rocky a despicably sneaky asshole or is he the ultimate badass? You're welcome to leave your opinion in the comments.

My new guilty pleasure. The next Rocky Steele is on its way while I'm typing this.

More here (review includes spoilers!):
https://a60books.blogspot.com/2024/04...

[Branik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, hard-boiled detective novel starring Rocky Steele, who evidently starred in a total of six of West's stories. The writing is so over-the-top and stereotypical of this genre that it almost reads as a parody at times. There's no detective story cliché so shopworn that West doesn't include it. Not a complaint. It's fun. Rocky doesn't hang up a phone, he hangs "the dead mackerel back on the hook." Well, that was a new one on me, anyway.

Interesting that white detective Rocky Steele was created by the black author John B. West, a physician interested in tropical diseases who was writing at least some of his detective stories from West Africa, where he moved to from America.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: the cover note says it all: Rocky Steele finds a corpse in his car, two luscious dolls at his heels, and the police on his back.

[Dracula Raupe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Weird. They killed a cops, Who did kill cops. They are dead. His sister killed and Stone killed, Stud killed. Sound blame each other who did. He is in the jail.