Fast One

Fast One is possibly the toughest tough-guy and most brutal gangster story ever written. Set in Depression Los Angeles it has a surreal quality that is positively hypnotic. It is the saga of gunman-gambler Gerry Kells and his dipso lover S. Granquist (she has no first name), who rearrange the LA underworld and “disappear” in an explosive climax that matches their first appearance. The pace is incredible and relentless and the complex plot with its twists and turns defies summary. One Los Angeles reviewer called the book ‘a ceaseless welter of bloodshed’; while the Saturday Review of Literature thought it ‘the hardest-boiled yarn of a decade.’

Fast One was originally a collection of stories featuring the gambler/gunman Kells. The tales ran in Black Mask magazine from 1931-1932