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From the Back Cover
This is how it is when you wake up in the morning of the morning you have waited a lifetime for: there is no waking state. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Beginning with a prison breakout and re-establishment back into his life of crime, Ralph proves to be a violent, self-centred man. His life revolves around making money, and if that means robbery and murder is involved, then so be it. He is joined by Holiday, a jealous, suspicious and spiteful gangster's moll of low-morals who is prepared to sleep with any man who walks through her door, and Jinx, a small time crook happy to hang on to the coattails of Ralph's criminal genius. They are all a group of criminals who are anything but reliable, willing to rat each other out for any price.
The unnamed city in which the book is set is filled with corruption, from the criminals themselves to the crooked cops who police it. The grab for money is intense and morals are non-existent.
As with all noir stories, there are no good or nice characters, most of them are pretty repugnant people, and there is no chance of even a remotely happy ending.
Take a con who's Ivy League educated and has warped aspirations of making himself as corrupt as possible. Yeah, do that, and at the same time, let him keep his three-dollar words to throw in when he feels like it, when he wants to prove--to himself, mostly--that he's a hell of a lot more educated than the guys he 'admires': Alvin Karpis, Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger. It's a potent mix, and McCoy does it up just right. The language is not stupid; it's perfect, reflecting the main character (Ralph Cotter)'s twisted psyche. Everything's from his point of view.
You got your shysters, your corrupt cops, your wicked women. Oh yeah, you got 'em, all right, but when they're in the picture, the dialogue snaps like a wet Coney Island towel wielded by a wiseguy.
You wanna good read that reminds you of American knowhow--as in I know how to push your buttons, buddy? I know how to give you a story that tells you about the things Americans think about, but don't talk about.
This is it. This is an egg whose shell you can't break. That's how hardboiled this is.
Ralph Cotter is evil incarnate. He's an amoral criminal who kills in cold blood. But unlike most other murdering thugs, Cotter is a cultured, educated man. His Phi Beta Kappa key is probably the last thing he ever came by honestly. To make everyone aware of his intellectual superiority, he freely uses five dollar vocabulary words and regularly makes obscure references to the classics.
Following a harrowing escape from a prison work farm, Cotter shacks up with a slutty gun moll named Holiday. It doesn't take him long to find corrupt police officials he can blackmail into doing his bidding. And his charming demeanor allows him to become romantically involved with the obscenely wealthy daughter of an ex-governor.
Is the plot of Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye a believable one? Of course not. I doubt it was meant to be. This is an allegorical novel. A fairy tale for adults, if you will. The novel's strength lies in its ability to convey certain truths about human fallability through the very detailed and astute introspection of the repugnant but fascinating narrator.
Both Cotter and the book itself have an overpowering audacity that makes for very compelling reading. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is an original work of crime fiction that embraces the noir tradition and takes it to a whole new level. Highly recommended.
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