Never Say No to a Killer By Clifton Adams

You sonofabitch, I thought, if you knew what was good for you, you would pull that trigger right now, because five minutes from now it's going to be too late! Never Say No to a Killer

Clifton Adams » 5 Summary

Interesting opening sentence.
Couldn't make it beyond the 80 page mark.
And I'm a big Clifton Adam fan.
I'm removing this.
There are too many really excellent books by new authors for me to be wasting my eyes on something that isn't moving me. 1596545208 Good advice.

And don't say yes either ... unless you've listened to the question real, real careful. 1596545208 A bit slow except around the couple of action scenes. Ultimately unlikable character. Would not recommend. 1596545208 Good Pulp

Clifton Adams/Jonathan Craig was one of the best hardboiled,authors of the fifties and this is one of his best. Fast pace, action filled, this is pulp melodrama at its best. 1596545208 A solid first person crime novel. Has a nice feel and the prose was simple and straightforward. The main character thought he was a genius in philosophy and human behaviors, so he thought he could be a criminal mastermind. After breaking prison he finds that a girl is waiting on him instead of a former cellmate who was suppose to be there. From there he gets that this is his former cellmate's (who is now dead) wife and that she is in some trouble of her own. A guy who her late husband was blackmailing wants her dead and to get the blackmail material. Well that suits our psychopath just fine he has no qualms in killing and he has uses for the material that his former acquaintance has on other figures as well.

I would recommend, it can be a little tedious at times since there isnt a single likable person in the entire narrative. But it does gave a nice feel of a 40s noir film and it does keep your interest up to see what will happen to the main character. 1596545208

Classic pulp fiction from the late 1950s, recommended for 87th Precinct series readers. Roy breaks out of prison, full of self-belief and confidence that a jailbird friend will help him disappear. He succeeds, but finds someone else waiting for him, who expects to be paid in kind. Roy is a stone cold killer, but is smart and determined, parlaying his freedom into riches and a beautiful woman. But, can he succeed? Well worth 99 cents from Amazon. 1596545208 Good action scenes, otherwise quite dark and slightly boring. 1596545208 The Dollar-Store version of Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye. 1596545208 I've got a free time slot, and I wanted to say a few things about this title. First, you can pick it up over at munseys.com as an ebook. I think Adams wrote this one under the pseudonym Jonathan Grant. He's a new author to me, so I can't speak of his other titles (including the Westerns he wrote). This 1956 noir is a compact (~150 pages) Ace that concerns one Roy Surratt, a young desperado convict. He busts loose from a chain gang building the prison airfield. Joe Venci, Roy's old cellmate who's out now, cooked up the escape plan with Roy.

Roy discovers Joe is dead, but his accomodating wife Dorris picks up Roy at the prearranged spot, and they go on the lam together. They end up in Lake City where the Vencis live. Roy soon learns Joe left a blackmail file on the leading citizens which is a cash cow. Roy also finds out Dorris likes it rough. Their scenes are rather explicit for 1956, too.

Before long, Joe hooks up with Patricia Kelso, the girlfriend of his first blackmail victim. Pat is the girl of his dreams, so he shifts his blackmail schemes into high gear to extort more cash so he can woo her with expensive gifts such as a fleet of Caddies. Unfortunately, Roy probably has met his match in the hard-nosed Pat.

Of course, it falls apart on Roy. He views himself as a crime philosopher/genius, and his superior attitude plus boundless ego get the better of him. There are clear echoes of Jim Thompson here except not quite as raw and visceral. On the other hand, Adams knows how to elongate a chase scene and squeeze out its sweaty suspense and mental anguish. I liked the small city atmosphere and gritty characters. I'm not sure why Clifton Adams isn't better known today, but I plan to read more of his fiction, and soon, I hope.


1596545208 Originally published as an Ace double novel with Trimble’s Stab in the Dark as the twin novel, Adams’ Never Say No to a Killer is a dark crime story about Roy Surratt. Unlike Adams’ other crime novels (Death’s Sweet Song and Whom Gods Destroy), there is absolutely no inkling here that Surratt was ever a wide-eyed innocent. There is no thought that maybe some crooked dame bewitched him to do her bidding. Not here. Surratt, from beginning to end, is a vicious cutthroat criminal and makes no bones about it.

Set in Lake City (which was probably a made-up town in Oklahoma), Surratt opens the book by busting out of prison where he is busy building a runway under the shotguns of the prison guards. In a violent escape, he takes no one else with him and escapes to a waiting car in the nearby town, where he is told by the widow of his buddy (Venci) that he has a debt to pay by killing a prominent man who wants her dead. She also gives him Venci’s blackmail files and Surratt decides he is going to go after the crooked politicians that Venci compiled files on and one-by-one such $20,000 from each of them. His dalliance with the widow, Dorris, is odd. She is available, though he does not regard her as a looker, but is surprised to find she is into sadomasochism.

The violent prison escape which one would think would loom large over the story takes a backseat to everything else and is barely relevant for much of the story. Thus, it is not a man on the run story as one would expect. Surratt is an unusual character, not only for his odd relationship with Dorris, but his romance with his neighbor down the hall, Pat Kelso, the secretary of one of his targets. He quotes her philosophy from the Marquis de Sade and Frederich Neitzsche. He tells her his theory is to take whatever he wants. She is fascinated by the mink coat he buys her and the endless catered dinner he has prepared in his apartment in his seduction of her. Surratt is a loner. He has no buddies. No henchmen. No one on his team except for Venci, who was murdered before the prison break.

When there is action in this novel, Adams makes it thorough and unrelenting action, demonstrating quite ably his writing chops. This is true both with the prison break and when Surratt is later confronted with desperate blackmail victims. A surprise ending ties it all together. 1596545208