A Piece Of Something Big

A Piece Of Something Big, by Harry Reed
No month stated, 1972  Lancer Books

I was very happy to discover this obscure Lancer paperback original. It’s one of the better crime novels I’ve read – a lean, well-written pulp yarn about a guy with a “Karate Iron Hand” who becomes the victim of a syndicate triple cross. It’s a super cool story and certainly would’ve made for a good movie, but unfortunately the cover blurb is a lie – no movie was ever released.

I’d love to know the story behind A Piece Of Something Big, and not just what happened to the promised film version. Harry Reed is a gifted writer, doling out the assured, economical prose of a veteran pulp author…which makes it quite strange that there’s only one other novel published under his name: The Gringo Killer, from 1971, a Western also published as a Lancer paperback original.

Even more curious: A Piece Of Something Big is copyright Josephine Reed, which would imply that “Harry Reed” is the pseudonym of a female author. If this is true, then Josephine Reed is in the Leigh Brackett mold, one of the very few female authors who can write like a man – in other words, capable of very masculine fiction. However I think there’s more to it than that; The Gringo Killer is actually copyright Harry Reed, which would imply he was a real person and not a pseudonym. So what I think we have here is similar to the situation with Killinger, a novel that was published after the author’s death. This would explain why A Piece Of Something Big, published a year after The Gringo Killer, is copyright Josephine Reed and not Harry Reed. It would also explain why there are no other Harry Reed novels.

Anyway I go into all this because I really, really enjoyed this novel. At 156 pages of smallish print it moves at a snappy clip and captures the exact vibe I love in my ‘70s pulp crime. It’s got smart-guy dialog, colorful characters, fairly exploitative sex scenes, and even a couple nicely-done action sequences. Hell, there’s even a “hippie lawyer” in it. It sort of falls apart in the last quarter, which I’ll get to anon, but even that wasn’t enough to dim my enjoyment of the book. It’s certainly the sort of thing that should be reprinted by Hard Case Crime or some other retro publisher of today, though they might be a little skittish about the occasional usage of the word “Negro.” However the black characters in the book come off very well.

The vibe is very much of a Fawcett Gold Medal hardboiled novel, only moved into the early ‘70s and featuring a hardbitten con with superhuman karate skills as the protagonist. Also, it’s written in a much preferable (to me at least) third person narrative, unlike most of those vintage Gold Medals which were in first person. And as mentioned the sex is more explicit (though nothing too outrageous), with frequent exploitation of the female characters’ ample charms. These are all of course good things.

Our hero is Kurt Kruger and he’s a short, thin guy with receding blond hair; just overall an unremarkable looking guy with a forgettable face. However his right hand is not forgettable: there’s a hard “lump” of calcified bone over his knuckles, courtesy that “Iron Hand.” This was considered a big thing with oldschool martial artists, and I wonder if Reed was inspired by Don Buck, a martial artist of the day who had a similar deformed hand due to his brutal karate training regimen. And Kruger’s hand really is deformed; even if he could hold a gun he wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger.

Kruger’s backstory gradually unfolds in the narrative, but basically he’s somewhere in his thirties and served in the navy, where he took up boxing. Once stationed in Japan he moved into karate and studied with the top instructor of the land, which is how he got that iron hand, and also how he ran afoul Yobiyashi, considered the most dangerous man alive. This backstory seems as if it’s going to be more important than it turns out to be, but basically Kruger was “running around” with Yobiyashi’s sister and they got in a car wreck. The girl died, and now Yobiyashi has sworn to kill Kruger in revenge, not just for his sister’s death but because she died in “disgrace” by dating a white man.

From there Kruger’s had various issues with the law and employment, so that when we meet him he’s in a jail in a podunk desert town in Arizona, arrested for a heist gone wrong. The opening of the novel is already memorable enough: a “drunk Indian” puking, much to the dismay of his cellmates. Kruger’s sprung by some strangers who show up in a limo. Leading them is a “prosperous hippie” type with long beard and highfalutin mod clothing. This is Sylvester Doblin, the aforementioned “hippie lawyer.” He and some thugs drive Kruger to San Francisco, where a mysterious individual wants to offer Kruger a job.

Their destination is a “fortress mansion” where Kruger’s put up in an opulent room that’s basically a gilded cage. But they at least send him a woman – a built blonde hooker named Zelda, who engages Kruger in some off-page lovin’ that’s apparently so incredible they fall in love! Reed does a very good job bringing Zelda to life; the mysterious guy who owns this mansion retains a group of women who are used exclusively for the services of his guests and the thugs on his payroll, and Zelda is very matter-of-fact about the setup. She ends up getting raped by these thugs more than once in the course of the novel, but each time treats it as “just another john.” Yet the developing bond between her and Kruger comes off as genuine and believable.

This is because Reed has a definite gift for characterization and humorous dialog. Kruger has a very quick wit, and this pairs well with Zelda’s plucky attitude. Meanwhile Kruger meets the man who summoned him here: BJ Baldoni, an infamous syndicate man. Baldoni relates that his daughter Lucia is going around with a black boxer (not the phrase Baldoni uses – and there’s a lot of N-word stuff here that would also make a modern publisher skittish) and Baldoni wants Kruger to beat the shit out of the guy…to the extent that he’ll avert his eyes when he bumps into white people on the street (again, not the exact phrase Baldoni uses – it’s much more over the top).

The novel’s a bit modern in Kruger’s attitude on this: “I’m twenty kinds of bastard but race is not one of my hangups.” At any rate he agrees to the job when he’s informed the boxer, Brad Killens, is just a plain asshole, let alone any racial stuff – he’s got a wife he beats on, kids he neglects, and his boxing triumps are courtesy smaller individuals he taunts and then creams in the ring. Kruger’s job is to knock Killens down to size, in front of Lucia, and first Baldoni has Kruger show off his skills against one of Baldoni’s thugs, a hulking goon named Tiny.

Sadly this will prove to be one of Kruger’s few action scenes in the novel – and he doesn’t even use the Iron Hand, much to Baldoni’s (and the reader’s) dismay. He does though stomp Tiny in the balls so savagely that the bastard ends up losing one of them – and this merciless act is payoff for Tiny insisting, earlier that morning, to have sex with Zelda after Kruger was done with her. This though being the first of many such “who cares?” moments for Zelda, who takes Tiny to bed moments after leaving Kruger’s. This is the only time I’ve ever encountered such a scene in a novel – usually the hero fights for his woman – but as I say it comes off well, probably because it’s so unexpected.

Killens is in San Diego and here most of the novel plays out, but Reed doesn’t much bring the locale to life. But again, you don’t look to pulp crime novels for travelogue material, so that’s okay. Kruger’s put up in a plush apartment with Sylvester, the hippie lawyer, and made to pose as a famous painter who likes to surf. Reed doesn’t do much to exploit either of these angles, though Kruger meets Lucia Baldoni while “painting” on the roof of the apartment building (while Lucia is sunbathing in the nude). The goal is for Lucia to spot Kruger and fall for him…she goes for fighting men, which is why she apparently likes Killens so much, and Baldoni wants Kruger to challenge Killens over the girl and beat him to pulp. This could be “a piece of something big” for Kruger, Baldoni promises – he’ll get those charges from the heist in Arizona dropped, and he’ll fund a new karate school for Kruger.

Lucia is a beautiful and built brunette, and Reed, as with Zelda, exploits her ample charms – more indication to me that this novel was the product of a fevered male imagination. Baldoni’s such a thoughtful boss that he even presents Kruger, through Sylvester, with the “gift” of a key – which opens an apartment across town, an apartment in which Zelda is staying, put there expressly for Kruger’s use. But Baldoni also sends periodic tests Kruger’s way, like a deranged speedfreak hippie who tries to carjack Kruger’s Jaguar XKE. This time we get to see the Iron Hand in action.

Reed does a great job of capturing that swinging early ‘70s vibe I love so much. Kruger and Lucia go to a posh party where you can buy “marijuana joints” upstairs – Kruger’s not into it – and there’s also an orgy room in back, and Lucia teases Kruger about taking her back there. But Kruger’s an “old-fashioned motel man,” and when he takes down three more would-be attackers on the way outside to the Jaguar, Lucia becomes incredibly turned on by the violence: “Take me like the bitch whore I am! Quick! Put it in me before I die!” You’ve gotta wonder if this particular dialog would’ve made it into the promised film version…

The confrontation between Kruger and Killens in a restaurant is very well done, mostly because here again we get to see Kruger’s karate moves in action. But when he reads in the late edition of that day’s newspaper that Killens is dead, murdered in a fight, Kruger knows he’s been framed. He beat the boxer badly, but he didn’t kill him. This takes us into the second half of the novel, with Kruger on the run, unsure who to trust. Here Zelda’s character is further expanded, and her love for Kruger is constantly put to the test – there is a wonderfully-executed sequence where she’s taken advantage of by various Baldoni thugs, who insist she get on a plane back to San Francisco and forget about Kruger…but each time Zelda gets to the airport she just turns around and goes back to look for her man.

Reed also expands the story with the introduction of a black police lieutenant in San Diego who is old friends with Kruger from the navy; this character, Nat, has his own subplot in which he tries to help clear Kruger from the frame, and also helps out Zelda. This relationship is also well developed and comes off as genuine. Nat factors into the finale and how it plays out, and only here do I get into any criticisms, because sadly, things sort of fall apart in the final quarter of A Piece Of Something Big. 

I’ll refrain from complete spoilers. Basically we want to see Kruger get some revenge, but Reed keeps denying him it: first Kruger goes after one bastard who framed him, only to find the guy already dead, his head caved in, clearly from an Iron Hand blow. It’s yet another attempt at framing Kruger for murder. Then a few thugs get the drop on Kruger and he’s taken back to Baldoni’s fortress in San Francisco…and sits around in that same locked room. For weeks! And the simple vengeance plot is gussied up with various turnarounds and reveals, with Baldoni trying to further frame Kruger, making him look like one of the men who planned the entire Killens kill.

While Kruger is robbed of a good finale, Zelda fares much better. She’s taken off by two more goons, and when it’s clear they plan to drive her into the desert and kill her, she takes them out in one of the more memorable sendoffs I’ve ever encountered – she goes down on the driver while riding the thug in the passenger seat, then manages to crash the car as it’s on a curvy mountain road. She’s rescued and put in the hospital, but she’s gone into psychosis from the multiple rapes and beatings. Nat and his wife help bring her back to sanity, and the very end of the book features Zelda dishing out bloody payback with a submachine gun.

But Kruger…man, he gets a bum deal in the final pages. He still doesn’t get to dispense any Iron Hand vengeance! Instead Baldoni reveals that Yobiyashi, the Japanese killer who has vowed to murder Kruger, is the one who really took out Killens and the others, all so Baldoni could pay Yobiyashi back by delivering Kruger on a silver platter. So the two karate warriors begin to circle one another, prepared for the battle…and the helluva it is, Kruger’s no match for the guy. I thought for sure that we’d have this crazy, brutal fight, with Kruger pulling from inner resources, able somehow to defeat Yobiyashi, but it’s more like he’s plain outclassed…and the worst part is, Kruger is saved by another character. This to me is one of the biggest sins the action writer can commit: the hero having to be rescued by another character in the climax.

But don’t let this little detail dissuade you from seeking out A Piece Of Something Big. Before I got to those final pages I was prepared to declare this novel one of the best I’ve ever reviewed on the blog; I was really taken away by it, couldn’t believe how great it was. I can’t let my dissatisfaction with the last bit color my total enjoyment of what came before it.

In fact I started to wonder if Harry Reed died before he could finish the manuscript, and either his first draft got published or some editor (or Josephine Reed, hence the copyright?) attempted to finish what Reed had started. Not that the characters seem suddenly different in the last quarter, or that the dialog falls flat; it’s just that the novel seems building up and up, and then suddenly deflates. But then, this wouldn’t be the first pulp novel I’ve read that suffers from this syndrome, so likely it’s just pointless theorizing on my part.

Anyway, long story short, I totally recommend A Piece Of Something Big, with only slight reservations. It’s a damn shame there were no more Harry Reed crime novels. If anyone knows anything else about the guy, I’d love to hear it.