Author: Charles Williams
First Published: 1954
Ebook Publisher: mysteriouspress.com
Ebook Date: Jun 2014
Ebook Date: Jun 2014
It can be gratifying to read a really good book. It can be thrilling to read a really great book. But it is totally captivating to read a book that has been written by a suspense novelist at the top of his game.
I have just had the pleasure of reading A Touch of Death by Charles Williams. It was an experience I will never forget. There are sequences that occur in this book that will stay with me for a long time. I suspect I will be recalling scenes from this book when I read other stories - because I'm sure there will be imitators. I am absolutely certain I will be comparing other writers to Williams, and holding him up as an exemplar to their detriment.
Charles K. Williams was a Texan, born in 1909. After leaving education he enlisted in the US Merchant Marines, where he enjoyed a ten year stint before leaving to get married in 1939. Having become an expert in electronics, he worked for RCA and at Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington State. After the end of the Second World War he moved his family to San Francisco, where he was employed by the Mackay Radio Company. He contiued to work there until the publication of Hill Girl, his first novel, in 1951.
Williams went on to write a number of seminal books in the noir and suspense genres. Quite a few of his books have been turned into movies over the years with a fair few being foreign language films, perhaps a reflection of the superb plotting his stories contain. One of the most famous productions was for Dead Calm. It was the subject of an ultimately doomed adaptation by Orson Welles, who was the director, producer, writer and star of the abandoned 1970 project - eventually the book was made into a vehicle for Nicole Kidman in 1989.
Another title, which I remember as an extended TV-movie in 1990, was Hell Hath No Fury. Renamed, The Hot Spot, it was directed by Dennis Hopper and starred Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen and Jennifer Connelly. Apparently, Hopper decided only a matter of days before filming started, to use a 1962 screenplay that Williams had worked on with Nona Tyson rather than the originally planned script. This resulted in a much more dense noir tale that had been written for actor, Robert Mitchum in the 1960's.
A Touch of Death began life as a novella called And Share Alike in 1953, and was then published in extended form in 1954 as Mix Yourself a Redhead or for Gold Medal editions as A Touch of Death. Hard Case Crime retained that title for their 2006 edition. Unfortunately their cover is not used in the eBook version anymore.
Lee Scarborough is a few years past his best days as a football hero, when he travels to a beach complex on the Gulf coast to answer a personal advertisement in the local newspaper to meet someone about buying his car. Scarborough is hard up at the moment, a life as a real estate agent isn't going so well, and he needs money fast. He can't find his prospective buyer, but makes the acquaintance of sun-bathing hottie Diana James. After an aborted attempt to try and sell her his car, she makes a counter-offer.
Diana has a plan to make a fortune. $120,000 in embezzaled funds to be precise. Not long ago, her lover took the money from the bank he worked at, but disappeared before they could meet up and dissapear to another life together. The police think he flew the roost with the cash, but Diana is sure he's dead. She says the wife, Madelon Butler is capable of anything and killed her husband. The cash must still be is inside the Madelon's house, waiting to be picked up. Scarborough is desperate to try anything and agrees to sneak into the property at night in search of the abandoned cash.
At the house, Scarborough is shocked to not only find there is still someone living there, but also that he is being followed by another person breaking into the house at the same time. There is a fight, and he suddenly finds himself kidnapping the occupant and taking them to a friends shack. What follows is a suspense filled plot that dances poetically through one jeopardy moment to another as Scarborough tries to locate the cash and avoid the cops.
I cannot emphasise just how much I enjoyed Williams' book. It is filled with taught scenes and dialogue, characters full of undisguised jealousy, greed and ambition, all trying to get the better of each other. He keeps the cast small, there are only five characters who play significant parts in the tale. He is a master of suspense; characters creep through the night, hide from rifle-touting assassins, wind themselves up into frenzies of worry and sweat in cars while they wait for partners in crime.
Simply put, Charles Willaims writes with prose that is so good you don't notice how perfect it is. The words just drip tension off the pages of the book like a perspiring cold beer. Scarborough never stops thinking and over-thinking the situaton he is in - in one scene, where he finally collapses on a beach from sheer exhaustion you are there by his side.
The finale is like tightrope walking on a charged electrical wire. Like me, you'll be holdig your breathe with anticipation as the events unfold in slow motion. I cannot recommend this highly enough.
I have just had the pleasure of reading A Touch of Death by Charles Williams. It was an experience I will never forget. There are sequences that occur in this book that will stay with me for a long time. I suspect I will be recalling scenes from this book when I read other stories - because I'm sure there will be imitators. I am absolutely certain I will be comparing other writers to Williams, and holding him up as an exemplar to their detriment.
Charles K. Williams was a Texan, born in 1909. After leaving education he enlisted in the US Merchant Marines, where he enjoyed a ten year stint before leaving to get married in 1939. Having become an expert in electronics, he worked for RCA and at Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington State. After the end of the Second World War he moved his family to San Francisco, where he was employed by the Mackay Radio Company. He contiued to work there until the publication of Hill Girl, his first novel, in 1951.
Williams went on to write a number of seminal books in the noir and suspense genres. Quite a few of his books have been turned into movies over the years with a fair few being foreign language films, perhaps a reflection of the superb plotting his stories contain. One of the most famous productions was for Dead Calm. It was the subject of an ultimately doomed adaptation by Orson Welles, who was the director, producer, writer and star of the abandoned 1970 project - eventually the book was made into a vehicle for Nicole Kidman in 1989.
Another title, which I remember as an extended TV-movie in 1990, was Hell Hath No Fury. Renamed, The Hot Spot, it was directed by Dennis Hopper and starred Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen and Jennifer Connelly. Apparently, Hopper decided only a matter of days before filming started, to use a 1962 screenplay that Williams had worked on with Nona Tyson rather than the originally planned script. This resulted in a much more dense noir tale that had been written for actor, Robert Mitchum in the 1960's.
A Touch of Death began life as a novella called And Share Alike in 1953, and was then published in extended form in 1954 as Mix Yourself a Redhead or for Gold Medal editions as A Touch of Death. Hard Case Crime retained that title for their 2006 edition. Unfortunately their cover is not used in the eBook version anymore.
Lee Scarborough is a few years past his best days as a football hero, when he travels to a beach complex on the Gulf coast to answer a personal advertisement in the local newspaper to meet someone about buying his car. Scarborough is hard up at the moment, a life as a real estate agent isn't going so well, and he needs money fast. He can't find his prospective buyer, but makes the acquaintance of sun-bathing hottie Diana James. After an aborted attempt to try and sell her his car, she makes a counter-offer.
Diana has a plan to make a fortune. $120,000 in embezzaled funds to be precise. Not long ago, her lover took the money from the bank he worked at, but disappeared before they could meet up and dissapear to another life together. The police think he flew the roost with the cash, but Diana is sure he's dead. She says the wife, Madelon Butler is capable of anything and killed her husband. The cash must still be is inside the Madelon's house, waiting to be picked up. Scarborough is desperate to try anything and agrees to sneak into the property at night in search of the abandoned cash.
At the house, Scarborough is shocked to not only find there is still someone living there, but also that he is being followed by another person breaking into the house at the same time. There is a fight, and he suddenly finds himself kidnapping the occupant and taking them to a friends shack. What follows is a suspense filled plot that dances poetically through one jeopardy moment to another as Scarborough tries to locate the cash and avoid the cops.
I cannot emphasise just how much I enjoyed Williams' book. It is filled with taught scenes and dialogue, characters full of undisguised jealousy, greed and ambition, all trying to get the better of each other. He keeps the cast small, there are only five characters who play significant parts in the tale. He is a master of suspense; characters creep through the night, hide from rifle-touting assassins, wind themselves up into frenzies of worry and sweat in cars while they wait for partners in crime.Simply put, Charles Willaims writes with prose that is so good you don't notice how perfect it is. The words just drip tension off the pages of the book like a perspiring cold beer. Scarborough never stops thinking and over-thinking the situaton he is in - in one scene, where he finally collapses on a beach from sheer exhaustion you are there by his side.
The finale is like tightrope walking on a charged electrical wire. Like me, you'll be holdig your breathe with anticipation as the events unfold in slow motion. I cannot recommend this highly enough.
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