THE KILLING

Believe it or not, I've never seen Stanley Kubrick's 1956 film noir masterpiece THE KILLING. It's one of those films that I've heard nothing but good things about but somehow, I've managed to miss it for all of these years. The film stars noir icons Sterling Hayden, Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook, Jr., and Timothy Carey. It's part of the Criterion Collection and I just might have to treat myself to a Blu Ray copy sometime in the near future. 

Until then, I'll have to make do with the source material. I've had a copy of the Black Lizard paperback edition of THE KILLING on my shelf for years. I ran across it the other day and decided to give it a try. Lionel White's 1955 novel, originally published under the title CLEAN BREAK is an astonishingly accomplished caper novel that moves faster than a thoroughbred coming into the home stretch. 

Ex con Johnny Clay is the mastermind behind a brilliant and daring race track robbery. He assembles a team of non-professionals to aid in his scheme. The group includes a bent cop, a track cashier, a bartender and a policy writer. The plan is foolproof but, as always, things go wrong. 

A mobster gets wind of the job through one of the gang member's cheating tramp of a wife and decides to go after Johnny and his men after they've executed the heist. There's a violent showdown at the end of the book between the two gangs and a stinger of an ending on the last page. 

White tells his story using multiple points of view, getting inside the heads of various characters. And he brilliantly fractures space and time in the last third of the novel, bouncing back and forth in time as various events play out at the race track. 

Lean, tough, swift and brutal, THE KILLING is exactly the kind of crime novel I dig. Loved this book! Can't wait to see the movie.