Little Caesar (Wisconsin/Warner Brothers Screenplays)

this is one of the early gangster books with a wealth of "street-wise" detail and convincing dialogue - for me, the only downside was that there was no mystery involved, the guilty party was clear from the beginning.

Novel writing has come an awfully long way since this book was written, subject matter is good, story telling is poor. It may have seemed good in the early part of the last century, sadly it really isn't very good now.

This book was out of print and I really wanted it as a "surprise" present for my brother it arrived promptly and exactly as described

Attention, il s'agit du scénario du film et non du roman de Burnett dont il est tiré! C'est écrit en tout petit sur la couverture (Screenplay).

I have this 158 page British paperback edition of LITTLE CAESAR (1929). It changes spellings to suit a Brit audience, thus we see "kerb" for curb, "ketch" for catch, "humour," "colour" and so on..In W.R. Burnett's classic gangland novel, the central character's real name, Cesare Bandello, doesn't appear until near the end of the book. Burnett's writing style is terse but vivid and, outside of antique wiseguy slang, quite modern."Rico" Bandello was a nickel and dime hold-up man operating in Dayton, OH. when he was befriended by the head of a small Chicago gang. When Sam Vettori got older and lazy, he sat back while his protegé, muscle man Rico led the others on big-time stick-ups. One of these robberies was on New Year Eve, at a rival's dance club. This haul "made" Rico as an up-and-comer in the underworld, but that reputation was not without one drawback.Just before the Vettoris were about to leave with their bundle, Rico, always quick with a "gat," shot down a top cop, Cap. Courtney. His fate was sealed, but not for a while yet. During the passage of time before a gang member went "soft" and ratted Rico out for the murder, he had taken control of the Vettori gang in a bloodless coup, and got rival Arnie the Jew to leave Chicago with his boys in tow. There were plans from the elusive "Big Boy," known in later such novels as the "capo di tutti capi," for Rico to take control of a third mob, but it was not to be.Unfortunately for Rico, a year after it happened, Joe Massara, an underling who was also a dancer at the club where the killing occurred, was arrested for the crime. After four hours of police abuse and interrogation, Joe's resistance broke. He named Rico as Courtney's murderer.On the run with a big bankroll, Rico ends up right where he started: in Dayton, only now he's, "a nobody, a nobody." Under the alias of "Youngstown Louis" he gets into another gang, and once again quickly rises through the ranks, but there's a 7G reward hanging over Rico, a jackpot for anyone hungry enough and/or brave enough to try bagging the legendary tough guy.