Wild to Possess / A Taste for Sin

This guy could write, and created some of the best pulp noir of his time. Highly recommend.

At Brewer’s best he is a major American writer who should be taken seriously. These are good books.

I don't know why, but both Stark House double features by Gil Brewer contain one great novel and one crappy one. If you're going to try to resurrect an author's career, this seems a pretty rotten way to do it. Like  A Devil for O'Shaugnessy/ The Three-way Split , you pay for two novels, but only get one good one. As another reviewer pointed out, it's A Taste For Sin that is the real star of this collection. It immediately sucks you in and the words fly off the page and into your brain like bullets.Unfortunately, Wild To Possess was probably written while Gil was drunk, just like A Devil For O'Shaugnessy in the other Stark House collection of his novels. That said, Wild is better than A Devil, because at least it's noir and not a half-assed comedic detective story with an orangutan as one of the main characters (** insert face-palm here**). It's readable, but doesn't grab you by the throat from the get-go like Taste does. My advice is pick this up used on the cheap since only half the book is worth paying for. I give this collection 3.5 stars. Taste is easily 4 stars, Wild is more like a 2.5.As to plot, both Wild and Taste are remarkably similar: they each feature a horny criminal alcoholic loser as the protagonist--an unlucky guy who is trying to get laid and rich at the same time with disastrous, deadly results. It doesn't help when it's with another man's wife and said wife is a hot young femme fatale who wants her husband dead, but that's noir for ya!This collection also features two retrospectives on the author's life: one by Verlaine Brewer, his wife, and another by respected mystery writer Bill Pronzini. These both offer plenty of insider insights on what made Gil tick (alcoholism, depression, and all).When Gil was at his peak, he was one of the best crime/noir writers of his generation, and when he wasn't... well, you can't win 'em all.My favorite Gil Brewer remains:  A Killer is Loose  (Kindle only version). Hard copy--the Gold Medal Paperback Original from the 50s--is here:  A killer is loose: A Gold medal original (Gold medal book) . Also good, sleazy noir fun by Brewer are  The Vengeful Virgin (Hard Case Crime)  and this double feature:  13 French Street and the Red Scarf . It looks like a lot of his books are being released cheap on the Kindle now.If you like Gil Brewer, you will also enjoy books by Jim Thompson (e.g.,  The Killer Inside Me , Pop. 1280 , etc.) and David Goodis (e.g.,  Shoot the Piano Player , The Burglar (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) , etc).

Gil Brewer's writing is gritty, unpredictable and fraught with excitement. He writes beautifully of his times and does a credible job of setting his stories in the context of the 40s and 50s. Always fresh and interesting, Brewer avoids the cliched writing so often affecting the crime, mystery genre of Golden Age of paperback originals.Brewer, Day Keene and Harry Whittington formed the nucleus of a group of pulp writers in St. Petersburg, Florida. The potent cauldron creative soup flowing around these three shows in all of their writing.

Every once in a while it's nice to read a fast paced, no nonsense crime story, written before the existence of PCs, smart phones, ATMs, and large databases about you. It was a different world then and criminals had some advantages and some disadvantages compared to today. Not very deep stuff here but an entertaining period piece.

Can't go wrong with Brewer...if you know what you're getting.

A Taste of Sin:Gil Brewer (1922-1983) was a prolific author of paperback original crime novels in the mid-20th century before his life was consumed with alcohol and personal demons. He was at the top of his game in 1961 when he wrote A Taste for Sin, a novel that’s been reprinted by Stark House Press.Our narrator is Jim Phalen, an employee at the Happytime Liquor Store. As the novel opens, he’s been invited to the house of a horny local housewife for some afternoon delight. Her name is Felice, and her unwitting husband works at the local bank. She’s a conniving and kinky bitch — more on that later.Phalen is not a good and honorable person either. He rents a room in a dilapidated lodge with a toilet that barely functions, and he can barely afford those spartan accommodations on his meager salary. He recounts his brutally-violent past, and, man, it’s something else. Brace yourself for some insane violence throughout this book. Anyway, it’s clear that Phalen’s intention is to somehow leverage the rich, married lady he’s banging to change the direction of his life.Meanwhile, Phalen is dealing with the fallout of a petty crime he committed that spun out of control. He needs to be deceptively clever to avoid getting caught. Felice learns about Phalen’s money troubles and pressures him into a scheme to rip off the bank and kill her husband.What we have here is a femme fatale heist novel and a rather excellent one at that. A Taste for Sin showcases some of the best actual prose writing I’ve ever read from Brewer. The sex scenes are more graphic than usual for 1961, and the action scenes are a genuine bloodbath. I’ve always cited The Vengeful Virgin and 13 French Street as Brewer’s masterworks, but A Taste For Sin is the new top-of-the-heap. Highest recommendation.