In one way or another, each man at the farm is like that: nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, and nothing to live for except another day’s work for another day’s wage. He’s afraid if he stops working, you’ll fire him.” At one point, one of the old-timers continues working through his break:Īll right, Hogan,” I yelled at him. What the owner and foreman says is true-the men are free to leave at any time, are free to have whatever meal they want, are paid a day’s wage for a day’s work-the work itself is soul-crushing, even for men who are already broken.
It’s a perfect locale to show the depth of misery men like Mitch have fallen to: the conditions are hellish, the work is back-breaking, the straw-bosses are grifters who dislike anyone rocking their boat.
While he’s always a free man-just a wanted one-it felt like Mitch was back on the chain gang now, plus the novel had a strong sharecropper-in-hell vibe. And man, did Whittington learn how to plot: he pulled a few brilliant surprises that threw me for a loop yet still fit perfectly into the plot. It’s the kind of writing that works best because you don’t realize it’s there it allows you to get into the plot and read away. Not only does the book grab you with its pacing and tension, it doesn’t know how to relent. Whittington’s writing is smooth and unobtrusive it’s not full of deep metaphor or flashy imagery, but it allows you to read at a mile-a-minute pace to keep up with the plot. And stuck right in the middle is Mitch, with his old partner still on his trail… The farm owner is a rather intense nutjob, his wife is a loose woman, the foreman is oblivious to the racketeering run by the abusive straw-bosses. Broke, down on his luck, and with the local police after him for panhandling, Mitch takes a chance and signs on to a local farm as a laborer-a sprawling farmstead that’s half volunteer, half county prison. As a rookie cop, the last thing he wants is for his partner to beat a confession out of him, so he’s fled to the farmlands of Kansas in hopes of escape. Mitch Walker is on the run for a crime he didn’t commit. Ace may not have been the greatest publisher, but a lot of their covers are solid gold.
Ace Books #D-472 – 1960 – cover by Robert Maquire.
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