I Was Going Anyway by Robert Switzer

I Was Going Anyway is a small gem, a pleasure to discover - and definitely worth seeking out by those with a taste for Noir. It is labelled "A Cock Robin Mystery", but more than the death, the blackmail, and the adultery, it's actually a novel about the downfall of a sportswriter, as he tries to navigate a web of propinquity and propriety.

When Will meets Dorothy at a Christmas party, they click, and within a few months become engaged. He is a Toronto sportswriter, right now supporting his friend Billy Murdoch, a promoter whose prizefighter has just been hit one too many times. Billy and Will go way back. Fifteen years ago Billy helped Will's fugitive brother escape across the American border.

At that time Will was dating an aspiring actress who now calls herself Erie Clark. Her real name was Mary and Clark wasn't her real name either, "it was one of those long, long Polish names". A showgirl with little talent, she is tired of stripping and now, burned out at maybe 33, getting too old to be a party girl to deadbeat men in Miami. She arrives on Will's doorstep looking to rest, a room for a few days to collect herself. She remembers the illegal smuggling of the brother, but doesn't use it to force her invitation - with sympathetic Will she doesn't need to.

Dorothy returns from out of town, and it hits the fan when she and her father, a respected surgeon, find Erie still sleeping at Will's house. What will people think? She'll have to go. When Will forces her out of the house, Erie is ready to dredge up the past.

Enter Detective-Sargeant Roman, when Erie is later found in a hotel room with a bottle of pills. He is told the whole story and all the angles, but something doesn't sit right with him. Whatever it is, he's tired of guys getting away with it, somewhere, someone along the line should pay. A line is drawn from Erie to Will, from Billy to nightclub chiseler Piggy Latourelle, and Will finds himself neatly sewn up in a trap he never made.

"There is a world where this kind of thing happens. it is the world we live in. A lifetime of toeing the line and giving your seat on the bus to old ladies isn't going to change things a bit."

This 1961 novel set in Toronto, is a trim original; very well written with smooth style and disarming wit, insightful characterization, and a slow, imperceptible turn into the seemingly inescapable darkness that is - pure Noir. Will is admirably naive, unconcerned how having a beat down call girl living in your house would look. His relationship with D.S. Roman is also unique, they seem as much friends concerned for each other, as in the search for the truth.

Harder to find, but available.

I purchased this for the title alone, and am happy when I find novels from this time set in Canada. Robert Switzer was a Canadian writer with stories published in magazines, and he wrote the novelizations of two films: The Living Doll and Tent of the Wicked. This seems his only original work, but it is a gem I would easily read again, and am happy to have in my collection.

1961 / Hardcover / 121 pages