Ed McBain was a prolific crime writer, as well as a novelist of harsh realism (The Blackboard Jungle) and screenwriter (he wrote the screenplay for The Birds, adapted from a short story by Daphne du Maurier).

In his Noir novel I read yesterday, The Gutter and the Grave (doesn’t get darker than that), down and out ex-private eye Matt Cordell is seduced once again by a blonde (last time it was his wife and he found her in the arms of his partner; the partner found himself dead within seconds).  This time around Cordell releases the blonde bombshell’s hooks in time to save himself and solve a murder.  Much good it does him: at the end of the investigation (and the book), Cordell is back in the park by the Cooper Union, a Bowery bum once again:  “I drank from my jug.  It was very hot, and I felt alone.  I felt very alone.”

McBain does the Noir genre with perfect style and rhythm.  No hope lurks, no light attempts to penetrate.  Cordell is down and no one can get him back up again.  He’s a “guy with a shattered dream and no profession and a trunkful of memories, painful, the climactic memory the worst of all a guy who wished he’d have been beaten with a .45, truly destroyed, beaten to a pulp until there was nothing left but the memory of a man.  Matt Cordell, memory…Matt Cordell carried scars that would never heal.  Alcohol is good for scars; it’s an antiseptic.“  Now that’s solid-black Noir.

McBain also tells a good story, presenting a classic murder case with a classic twist yielding few surprises but still offering up an engrossing read, and even a few surprises.

The Gutter and the Grave is a fine old-fashioned hard-boiled mystery and a great escape into bulls (police detectives), dicks (private eyes), cool cats (jazz musicians), and Jezebels (ambitious women). A good man is hard to find, a good cop damn near impossible, and a good woman?  Never.  Has anyone ever read a Noir detective story with a solid dame?  Let me know before I hit the bench, and start waiting for the antiseptic to sink in.