Replacement E-Book

Jack Ritchie

• Herausgeber: Wildside Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 19

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

In Jack Ritchie's classic crime noir story "Replacement," Max Warren schemes his way up the ranks to take control from his boss Ed Kubak. After winning over Kubak's girlfriend Helen, Max sends the defeated man away.
Obsessed with revenge, Kubak commits an act that forces Max to hunt him down. When Max finally tracks down his rival in Florida, he expects an easy end to their feud.
But Kubak has one last twist in store, and Max realizes too late the deadly consequences of his ruthless ambition.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION, by Karl Wurf

REPLACEMENT, by Jack Ritchie

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2023 by Wildside Press LLC.

Originally published in Manhunt, November 1954.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

INTRODUCTION,by Karl Wurf

Jack Ritchie (February 26, 1922 – April 25, 1983) was an American writer of crime and detective fiction who was most prolific during the 1950s and 1960s. Though he only published short stories during his lifetime, Ritchie’s sole novel, Tiger Island, was published posthumously in 1987.

Despite his lack of novels, Ritchie’s had a major impact on the crime fiction field through his prolifically. His prolific contributions to the genre magazines like Manhunt and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine helped shaped the American mystery field and influenced a generations of writers, both his contemporaries and those who grew up reading his sparse, unadorned prose style.

His work exemplified the hardboiled crime fiction of the era. Ritchie’s stories often followed a classic noir structure, featuring a detached male protagonist navigating a grim underworld of violence and deception. Characters were motivated by greed and lust, with twists that turned on malevolent deception and moral compromise.

Unfortunately, I suspect largely due to his lack of novels, Ritchie’s contributions to the genre are less remembered now than those of giants like Hammett and Chandler. Still, Ritchie’s best stories stand as snapshots of desperate men and treacherous women caught in the machinations of human weakness and cruelty, archetypes that continue to permeate crime fiction decades later.

Enjoy “Replacement,” first published in the classic crime magazine Manhunt in November, 1954.

REPLACEMENT,by Jack Ritchie

If he hadn’t been Kubak, he could have disapeared almost anywhere and I never would have found him, even with the connections I have. He could hav lost himself in any city in the country and been safe from me.

But he was Ed Kubak and that made it impossible. He had been my boss once and every hood across the country knew Ed. They all knew his face, and they knew that I would give fifteen grand just to know where he was.