I guess I should feel ashamed of myself for liking The Dead Stay Dumb. I was in the mood for something light and hard-hitting, and James Hadley Chase was a good bet. Many years ago, I had read No Orchids for Miss Blandish, the novel that made Chase's reputation. At times, The Dead Stay Dumb resembles the male equivalent of a bodice ripper, with lots of meaningless violence, especially against women. One female character has her face burned with an electric curling iron by another woman, who is later strangled and buried in a gravel pit. I lost count of the number of bodies wasted by the book's hero, Dillon, in his quest to be the biggest, baddest gangster in town -- albeit not the smartest. Dillon represents pure id, whether in his dealings with women or with other gangsters who raise his ire. (And sooner or later, they all do.)It's interesting that the author of so many gangster novels set in America was not only British (his real name was René Lodge Brabazon Raymond) but made only two brief visits to the United States. Yet he did a fair job of mastering the American underworld idiom, to the extent that he does not seem British in any way. Of course, I have not read his later work, much of which was set in his native land.If I were to read more than one or two of Chase's novels in a year, I would definitely feel as if I were slumming. Yet he's really adept at what he does, and both novels of his that I've read are well described as page-turners
