Thomas B. Dewey’s Hunter at Large

Thomas B. Dewey’s Hunter at Large is a 1961 crime novel which has been reissued by Black Gat Books.

Thomas B. Dewey (1915-1981) was a prolific American crime writer.

Hunter at Large is a revenge story. Mickey Phillips is a young police detective. He and his wife Kathy live just outside of town. It’s a bit remote but that’s what Kathy wanted.

Then two guys knock at the door and Mickey’s whole world falls apart. Kathy is brutally murdered. Mickey is shot and left for dead.

The killers make one big mistake. They don’t check to make sure Mickey is dead. He survives. Only just, but he survives. When he recovers he wants revenge. He quits the police force. This is a quest he must undertake on his own.

He has two clues to go on. The killers knew his name but obviously didn’t know what he looked like. They had been hired to kill him but obviously had been given only his name. And one of the killers wields a razor the way only someone familiar with a razor would wield it - someone like a barber. It’s not much to go on but in Chicago he gets a break - he recognises a mug shot. It’s a guy named Lou Roberts.

The chase will take him to Kansas City, Denver and Arizona. To resort hotels and abandoned mines. His problem is that he has no evidence and no idea of the motive for the crime. He just figures that somehow or other he will find both evidence and a motive. Because he has to. But first he has to find Lou Roberts.

Mickey is a trained detective and now that he’s off the police force he has plenty of time. He can afford to be patient. And he is patient.

Along the way he hooks up with a cute prostitute named Irene. He befriends her because he thinks she might be some vague sort of lead. He’s just using her for information but he becomes oddly fond of her. She’s not quite a Whore with a Heart of Gold but she’s rather likeable and he helps her out of a couple of jams and she’s never had a man do anything nice for her before. They don’t fall in love but they develop a certain quirky affection for each other. He thinks he can trust her, up to a point. He doesn’t think she would deliberately betray him but he has had to tell her a few things which she might let slip.

He will meet another woman who might provide a lead and that will get complicated.

There’s a certain amount of action but very little gunplay. Rather surprisingly and perhaps foolishly, Mickey doesn’t even carry a gun and there are occasions when a gun would have come in real handy.

There’s some reasonable suspense and the mystery plot is quite serviceable.

The central issue is whether Mickey wants justice or just revenge. That’s a question that Mickey has asked himself and he can’t answer it. He takes a lot of risks because he feels he has nothing left to lose. Maybe he’s seeking self-destruction. Maybe he can still find some reason to live, or maybe he can’t. You’ll have to read the book to find out the answer to all of those questions.

He’s an archetypal obsessed hero driven by a single passion but he still has some humanity left in him. He treats Irene kindly even though he doesn’t owe her anything because it’s in his nature to do so.

There’s a major twist which is to an extent foreshadowed which is perhaps a weakness.

This is not noir fiction but it’s a competent hardboiled mystery crime thriller and it’s recommended.