Customer Reviews

The Peddler (Hard Case Crime)

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This beautifully written book is a parable for modern times, a "lesson" the Greatest Generation didn't need in 1952 but is now a very relevant moral story about the price of success at any price.

It has power, prestige, wealth, ambition, quick intelligence, loyalty and betrayal, and even a merger or potential hostile takeover. It has all the systems, values and hazards of unrestricted free enterprise system that never get to the business pages unless accompanied by a picture of a handcuffed miscreant in a highly visible perp walk. It shows what happens when 'Greed is enough' becomes the prime ethic.

Prather is superb.

In this book, he tells the story of a kid who's quick rise to success is based on the complete and cynical exploitation of people without a shred of conscience or compassion. In crime, business or politics, this is what happens when the only ethic is increasing profits or votes-at-any-price. There are probably more than a few people who can sympathize, "Yeah, that's what they told me before I came to work here."

Read it and you'll be reminded of the ethics of Enron, and perhaps remember Playboy's pictorial "the women of Enron".

As in all good parables, it uses a different setting to remind readers of a moral; in this case, a good hard-case crime story is the theme. The writing is superb without being lurid, fast-paced without being shallow, literate without being pretentious. Prather is a worthy member of the Greatest Generation, those people who went through 10 years of the Great Depression and five years of World War II without losing faith in themselves or their country.

Perhaps the 1930 - 1952 era taught him what can happen when human values become a distant last in the drive for success. Prather reminds us "it can happen here" and when it does it's a crime.

It's a great read as a hard-boiled crime story, and it's a profound read as a moral lesson that is completely relevant in today's world. Either way, you won't go wrong.