Dudley Dean McGaughey (1909-1986) wrote a huge number of pulp novels in various genres including both westerns and crime fiction under many different pseudonyms including Owen Dudley.
Ed Dunlap is in the construction business in partnership with his old army buddy Jake Armistead. Now Jake is dead. He was hit by a truck in the little town of Palm Oasis. That means Ed will have to return to Palm Oasis. It’s not a pleasant thought. He hasn’t been back there since he and his ex-wife Clissta were tried for the murder of his uncle. They were acquitted but as Ed soon finds out out he isn’t popular in Palm Oasis.
That’s partly his stepbrother Quince’s doing. Ed and Quince have always hated each other. Ed has hated Quince even more since he caught him in bed with Clissta.
Now Ed is going to have to deal with both Clissta and Quince again. Ed has a very strong suspicion that Jake was murdered. There’s also the matter of the forty-one thousand dollars that has disappeared.
It doesn’t take Ed long to figure out that Palm Oasis is a very bad place for him to be. Especially with crooked sheriff Bert Crackling out to get him. He doesn’t have much choice. If he can’t recover that money his construction business is finished.
Ed has an ally, of sorts. Her name is Pat. She’s seventeen. Ed assumes Jake was sleeping with her but Pat has a different story, a very different story.
From this point on the well-constructed plot comes up with some nice twists.
There’s certainly a strong noir flavour here. Ed is a decent guy and while he doesn’t have any typically noir character flaws he does have some serious noir vulnerabilities. He’s getting in deeper and deeper and he doesn’t know exactly what it is that he’s getting into.
The noir flavour is strengthened by the presence of three dangerous females and any or all of them could qualify for the femme fatale label.
There’s also a very squalid atmosphere of corruption. Palm Oasis is a rotten town where money can buy anything and there aren’t too many people in the town who haven’t sold out. Those that haven’t are too dumb or too apathetic or too scared to do anything about it.
Ed isn’t dumb. Maybe it’s not very sensible to pursue this matter but he’s fairly smart and he can work things out. The trouble is that when he does figure things out he finds he doesn’t have too many good options.
There’s a very hardboiled feel which the author handles well. There’s plenty of action and violence. There’s also some definite sleaze. One of the three dangerous dames is jailbait, one is a high-priced whore and one is a nymphomaniac.
All the noir fiction ingredients are here. Whether such a story is truly noir naturally depends on whether the hero can succeed in extricating himself from the appalling nightmare he’s landed himself in. If he cannot then it’s noir. If he can, then it’s merely noir-flavoured. And naturally I have no intention of giving you any hints as to how this one ends.
On the whole I found Run If You Can to be a pleasant surprise, coming from an author I’d never heard of. It’s well-crafted with plenty of suspense and with a nice cast of noirish characters. Highly recommended.
Armchair Fiction have paired this one with Milton K. Ozaki’s The Scented Flesh in a two-novel crime fiction paperback edition.
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