The Darkest Hour by William P. McGivern

William P. McGivern’s 1955 crime novel, The Darkest Hour, is a version of “On The Waterfront,” but with a lot more action and a lot less angst.

The book fits squarely into the noir category as an urban crime novel set mostly at night on the cold, dark streets along New York City’s waterfront, with a damaged and angry main character.

Steve Retnick used to be a good guy and a good cop who was promoted to detective at a young age. But gangsters framed him for the killing of a dock worker and Retnick spent five years in Sing Sing prison.

When the book opens, Retnick is out of the can and back in the city, using his street-smarts and detective skills to find the real killer and administer a little of his own justice on the men who set him up.

Retnick inflicts some physical punishment on thugs who deserve it, but he also puts innocent people in harm’s way. He knows what he wants and he also knows he is doing wrong. He has been warned off by his former police supervisor, but he presses on. This kind of destructive obsession is real noir territory.

A man who can give him the proof he needs to nail the hitman and his boss, is killed just as Retnick returns to the old neighborhood. The boss is a local gangster who is muscling his way into a dock-workers’ union.

McGivern’s story, despite an authenticity in the location, the people and the way things work on the waterfront, has a few weak spots, mostly in the subplot concerning Steve Retnick’s bitterness toward his wife, who did him dirt while he was in the joint.

Overall, The Darkest Hour (also called Waterfront Cop), is another good yarn from an author who was on a hot streak in the 1950s. Some of the other books McGivern published in that decade were: Shield for Murder (1951); Blondes Die Young (1952); The Crooked Frame (1952); Margin for Terror (1953); The Big Heat (1953); Rogue Cop (1954); Night Extra (1957); Odds Against Tomorrow (1957); and Savage Streets (1959).

William P. McGivern worked as a newspaper reporter and also wrote many short stories for the pulps. He served in the Army during World War II. After the war he turned to novel writing. In the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote for the movies and television, while continuing to turn out books. He died in 1982 at age 63.

(For more posts on books, head over to Todd Mason’s blog.)

(Also, check out my crime novel, Lyme Depot. Thanks.)

Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Crooked Frame

The Crooked Frame is a 1952 novel by William P. McGivern about a New York magazine editor who stumbles into his apartment in the wee hours, after a night of drinking and a brief blackout, to find his coat and shirt covered with blood. And it is not his blood.

Webb Wilson, 36, a man plagued by violent memories of combat in World War 2, drinks in hopes of finding some peace. All he wants is to live quietly, do the daily 9 to 5, and escape his haunting guilt. His boss upsets Webb’s quiet routine by uprooting him from his undemanding nook and placing him in charge of a department of quirky, off-beat characters, one of whom is murdered. The killer could be anyone on Webb’s staff, and it could be Webb himself who may have committed the crime during his blackout. As Webb pulls together the strings leading up to the murder, he begins to see that … well, McGivern’s story is too good to spoil with a lot of spoilers.

This story, told in a clean, straight forward style, is populated with well drawn, all too human characters. So well drawn are they that clues arrive almost unnoticed. McGivern also puts the reader in the uncomfortable position of wondering throughout the book whether or not Webb, the man trying to find the truth behind the murder, is the murderer himself.

Many of McGivern’s novels deal with cops and criminals, and while there is a forceful police investigator in The Crooked Frame, the focus is on Webb, his colleagues, the inner workings of the publishing firm, and the 1950s world of the three-martini lunch.

McGivern was on a roll in the 1950s. After years of newspaper reporting, writing for the pulps and a hitch in the Army during World War 2, he hit his stride when he published his first novel, But Death Runs Faster in 1948. He followed that effort with a dozen more crime novels over the next decade, including: Shield for Murder (1951), The Big Heat (1953), Rogue Cop (1954), Night Extra (1957) and Odds Against Tomorrow (1957). Many of his books were produced as films. In the 1960s and 1970s, McGivern wrote for the movies and television, while continuing to turn out novels. He died in 1982 at age 63.

The Crooked Frame is well worth the time to find and read.