HELL TO PAY by william r. cox

Reviewed by Brian Thornton

The 1950s were the hey-day of the "PBO," or "paperback original." Publishers such as Fawcett, Signet and Dell churned out thousands of these spiritual descendants of the work published in the so-called "pulp" magazines of the early 20th century. Just as the pulps helped launch the careers of such noir giants as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, initial publication in the 50’s PBO market was a big boost to (among others) John D. MacDonald.

Writers such as Hammett, Chandler and MacDonald were rare cases, though. For every writer who made it big out of a start in the pulps and PBOs, there were thousands who didn’t. Granted, many made it no further than publication in the PBOs because they were lousy writers. Others experienced varying degrees of success more because of the vicissitudes of fate than because of any lack of writing prowess on their part.

One such wrongly forgotten writer was William R. Cox. Cox wrote for both the pulps and the paperback originals markets, in addition to writing for the juvenile and biography hardcover markets, publishing well into the 1970s. His 1958 Signet PBO Hell To Pay is an example of what you get with a Cox original: good writing, tight plotting, dialogue that crackles and good characterization.

Hell To Pay takes place in late 1950s New York, and is the first-person account of professional gambler Tom Kincaid and his attempts to remain "freelance" in the face of a mob turf war between old guard establishment types and hop-headed upstart punks sorting leather jackets and pompadours, with both sides rather insistent that Kincaid chose a side, or else.

This was more than "The Godfather Meets Fonzie," though. Cox makes the most of his setting. The streets of New York have never been meaner, the hot spots never glitzier, and it’s all laid out with an economy of words that at times rivals that of Hemingway. Cox was truly a master of creative understatement: "Sandy’s is a delicatessen on Lexington Avenue where some of the people hang out at night, after the show, after the fights, before a game, any time they have no other place to go." This went for his descriptions of people as well: "This one cookoo was young and wore his hair long and oily and had fish eyes and he was pushy, fading the dice out of turn, elbowing his neighbors, laughing too loudly."

Of course being able to set a scene or establish a character swiftly was a skill required of anyone who hoped to succeed in the PBO market. At 126 pages, Hell To Pay is packed with these sorts of descriptions, and the action moves like (no pun intended) gangbusters. What’s more, Cox breathes realism into not just the barrooms and hotels, the brothels and card rooms which were the day-to-day haunts of professional gamblers such as his protagonist, Tom Kincaid, he brings an in-depth knowledge of the world of the professional gambler to the book as well. In Hell To Pay one finds detailed discussions of how one sets up a crooked dice game, and the odds to be encountered when counting cards, etc.

All of this combines to make Hell To Pay one whopping good read, and William R. Cox a forgotten genius.

Copyright© 2003 Brian Thornton

***

BRIAN THORNTON is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, and received his B.A. from Gonzaga University in 1992. Brian earned his M.A. in 19th century American and Tudor-Stuart English History from Eastern Washington University in 1995, and has had articles published in The Pacific Northwest Forum and Columbia: the Magazine of Pacific Northwest History. He lives in Seattle.
Contact Brian

Read an extract from Brian's novel The Sky Is Crying