It wasn’t bad, it just seems to sag a bit when compared with the earlier part and dropped it from a fun 4 stars to a solid 3.

However, that piece gets wrapped up very quickly, and then the book shifts into a second phase which I didn’t like quite as much. I very much enjoyed the first half in which Fell is trying to wrestle control of his organization back from Pander with the criminal syndicate watching to see which man deserves it. I don’t think it quite lives up to the billing that Westlake gave it, but it’s still an entertaining piece of hard boiled crime writing. I heard about this one from Donald Westlake’s non-fiction collection The Getaway Car in which he raved about it in an introduction he wrote for a book of Rabe’s stories. But what could be stressful about an underworld fight for control of a city? Unfortunately, Fell has been getting treatment for a manic disorder at a sanitarium, and his doctor warns Cripp that taking him away and putting him a stressful environment could have dire consequences. Pander sees this as his chance to take over for good so Fell’s loyal minion Cripp fetches the boss. San Pietro is a small city with a bustling bookie business thanks to its horse racing track, but the local criminal kingpin Tom Fell, hasn’t been seen in a month after leaving his flunky Pander in charge. Some movie gangsters are loud and gregarious, others cold and calculating – and you’ll find all of them on our definitive list of the best gangster movies of all-time.Leave a copy of this laying around the office and see how your boss rates you in your next performance review after he or she gets a look at the cover…. It could be yakuza enforcers in operatic gunfights or hard-boiled mobsters indiscriminately spraying the competition with bullets. It may involve cigar-munching mobsters maintaining vast criminal empires or street-level bosses presiding over a city block. But getting to live vicariously through the ones we see on screen is one of cinema’s purest thrills, mostly because it’s a lifestyle the majority of us would never dream of adopting or even living adjacent to.īut the truth is that the gangster movie isn’t a monolith. Sure, in reality, life as a career criminal seems like a bum gig – always looking over your shoulder, never able to trust even your closest compatriots, and that’s not to mention all the amoral behavior. As far back as anyone can remember, cinemagoers have loved gangster movies.

Kill the boss movie