December 1, 2023
Readers dipping a toe into noir fiction have been heard to cry out, ""The plots don't make any sense!"" To which aficionados retort, ""So? Noir is about language, energy, attitude, the sense that under the thin glaze of civilization lurks an evil yearning to destroy us."" Fast Charlie, a reissue of Gischler's first novel, Gun Monkeys (2001), offers a chance to see these qualities in action as we follow mob hit man Charlie Swift through his blood-soaked life. He's attempting to hand over a set of cooked books that would destroy a rival. Everybody's after them, including some bent feds. Vivid prose? A goon has ""a face like a canned ham."" Attitude? Charlie does not have a heart of gold; he's ""a gun monkey who makes people bleed when they get out of line."" He boasts of killing a man with a boat hook. We watch him torture a young man for information. Fans distinguish noir from hard-boiled, saying that noir endings don't resolve anything. Is what happens to Charlie noir or hard-boiled? Readers can decide.
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