Cleve F. Adams
Cleve F. Adams was an influential American author known for his hard-boiled detective fiction, particularly during the 1930s and 1940s. Born in 1895 in Chicago, Adams transitioned from various jobs, including screenwriting and life insurance, to writing compelling mystery novels, many of which were published in pulp magazines. He is often recognized for his creation of the private investigator Rex McBride, a character that flips the traditional heroic narrative on its head by embodying the traits of an antihero, marked by cynicism and moral ambiguity. Adams's writing is noted for its realistic character portrayals and fast-paced, gritty narratives that reflect the political corruption of his time. His works provide a nuanced take on the detective genre, emphasizing motivation and character depth over intricate plotting. Adams's contributions, particularly his exploration of complex, flawed individuals, have earned him a place among notable writers in the hard-boiled tradition, even as he remains somewhat overshadowed by contemporaries like Raymond Chandler. His novels continue to be recognized for their unique perspective and lasting impact on the genre.
Cleve F. Adams
- Born: September 5, 1884
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- Died: December 28, 1949
- Place of death: Glendale, California
Types of Plot: Private investigator; hard-boiled
Principal Series: Rex McBride, 1940-1955; William Rye, 1942-1950; John J. Shannon, 1942-1950
Contribution
Cleve F. Adams was one of few pulp writers to make the successful transition to hardcover publication. Although he is an underrated author, eclipsed by his contemporary, Raymond Chandler, Adams brought a new dimension to the genre. Chandler’s image of the private investigator as knight-errant is inverted by Adams into the image of private investigator as antihero. Working in the hard-boiled tradition of Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, Adams has been acclaimed as “one of the best of the tough detective story writers of the middle and late thirties.” His private-investigator novels have been described as unique, having captured “the gray and gritty feel of the time as powerfully as Chandler” and having created an enduring image of the private detective. Adams regarded motive and characterization as the essential elements of mystery and detective fiction. His fast-paced novels present convincing, credible characters and capture the political violence and corruption of the 1930’s.
Biography
Cleve Franklin Adams was born in 1895 in Chicago, where he spent his childhood and his youth. In 1919, at the age of twenty-four, Adams moved to California and worked at a variety of jobs, including soda jerk, window trimmer, interior decorator, copper miner, screenwriter, life insurance executive, and detective.
Adams began producing hard-boiled mystery fiction around 1934, writing almost exclusively for pulp magazines such as Detective Fiction Weekly, Double Detective Tales, Argosy, and Black Mask. Between 1936 and 1942, he published fifty short mystery stories.
In 1940, Adams published his first detective thriller, Sabotage, followed by a second novel, And Sudden Death, that same year. In the next eight years, he published thirteen more novels, one of which, No Wings on a Cop (1950), was expanded by Robert Leslie Bellem, and another, Shady Lady (1955), was completed after his death by Harry Whittington. He also worked as a film director and screenwriter; cofounded, along with W. T. Ballard, the Fictioneers, a group of local Los Angeles writers (including Raymond Chandler); and worked with the Authors League of America. On December 28, 1949, he died of a heart attack at his home in Glendale, California.
Analysis
Cleve Franklin Adams contributed hard-boiled mystery fiction to pulp magazines in the mid-1930’s, eventually publishing his first story, “Vision of Violet,” in the February, 1936, issue of Clues: A Journal of Detection. In the summer of 1940, he was employed by Ken White, editor of Black Mask, to “inject new life and vigor into the magazine and to reestablish the magazine’s tougher, hard-edged image.” This period of apprenticeship allowed him to create several hard-boiled detective heroes, gradually bringing into existence the private eye who would be given the name Rex McBride.
And Sudden Death and Sabotage
Adams’s first two novels, Sabotage and And Sudden Death, were published in 1940. With these novels featuring private investigator Rex McBride, Adams created a new, intriguing variation on the detective hero. Instead of a Philip Marlowe or a Sam Spade with whom the reader can empathize, the reader is presented with the antithesis of these characters—Rex McBride, the private investigator as antihero or chauvinist pig: Crude, coarse, and cynical, yet sentimental, he is deficient in morals and enigmatic in nature. McBride “has a capacity for long, brooding silences, sudden ribald laughter, mad fury, and aloof arrogance.” No one—clients, police, criminals, or female friends—understands him. McBride, however, get results. Adams, who sees motivation as the crucial element in the mystery and detective genre, notes the impulse that drives him: “his singleness of purpose . . . He has been hired to do a job and he is going to do it. Come hell or high water he’s going to do it.”
As Adams acknowledges, this conception of the detective hero is an inversion of the hero legend. Unlike Chandler’s Marlowe, McBride is not a knightly hero and does not attempt to redeem the corrupt. He is an ordinary man. Although cast in the hard-boiled mold, McBride is a complex individual. His personal involvement with a case may be prompted by the need for justice or simply the need for money. He is emotional and impulsive. By turns he is arrogant, caring, coldhearted, generous, moody, sentimental, and ruthless. Yet it is his changeable nature that makes him human and believable.
Other characters in the novels are also realistically drawn, from clients to villains. As one critic says, Adams “showed a genius for juggling diverse groups of shady characters, each with his or her own greedy objective.”
Careful plotting is not a primary characteristic of Adams’s fiction. He prefers instead to let situations accumulate until the hero finds himself in a jam. As he views it, the detective who is logically motivated will create suspense; his desire to win will make him a menace to opposing forces. Thus, the other central elements of mystery fiction, suspense and plot, naturally derive from motivation:
As I see it, suspense is built on MENACE. This urgency both for and against, does not only apply to a detective-mystery story. What matter if it be only a golf tournament. Our hero wants to win, doesn’t he? And our villain, or villainess, simply isn’t going to stand for his winning . . . He wants to win, too. He wants to win, even if he has to resort to unsportsmanlike shenanigans, by golly. So is he a menace? You bet your sweet life he is. And does the struggle between the two opposing forces create SUSPENSE? Well, if the writer has done his job, it should.
Adams’s handling of plot and his mode of pacing are typically hard-boiled. His stories are complicated, involving the standard cast of gangsters, treacherous women, unsympathetic police officers, corrupt politicians, and professional criminals. Violent action is generously provided, and crimes are so extravagant and so inextricably tangled together that Adams’s protagonist is often faced with almost impossible tasks. McBride’s success in getting results stems from his knowledge of the streets and his ability to move freely among its elements.
Up Jumped the Devil
The enigmatic nature of McBride and the fast-paced action of his violent world are best exemplified in Up Jumped the Devil (1943). The first two paragraphs reveal Adams’s view of realistic characters and logical airtight motives:
McBride paused just inside his door and regarded the dead man with some astonishment, for while this was not the first dead man he had ever seen it was certainly the first time he had found one sitting in his own room. Presently it occurred to him that it was not his own room, and he turned, opening the door a trifle wider, and compared the number on the door panel with that on the key he still had in his hand. No, he decided, the mistake was the dead man’s, not his.
Further, McBride discovers that his suitcase, a well-traveled but expensive Gladstone that is his pride and joy, has been defaced. The novel thus begins superbly with a dramatic encounter that gets the story moving. Instantly, McBride has a personal stake in the situation. The language is simple, with highly active verbs that create excitement. In addition, the sharpness of McBride’s wit and his changing emotions are understandable and logical, revealing Adams’s theory that plausibility stems directly from the writer’s urge to have characters act like people.
From this point in the novel, Adams creates a breathless pace; suspense mounts from page to page. McBride is faced not only with the major problem of discovering who murdered the man and put him in his room but also with a series of complicated situations and murders. Hired to follow the Chandlers and recover the jewels paid for by his insurance company after they were lost, he must solve each minor situation before he can find the solution to the first murder. He encounters treacherous women, is threatened and deceived by clients and criminals, and is beaten and kicked unconscious.
This piling of incident on incident reveals Adams’s weakness with plot. Yet, McBride’s character is heightened and motivation is sustained throughout the novel. Although there are several plot threads that must be resolved, the diverse ingredients are blended together well. In the end, McBride is faced with the painful revelation that a woman in whom he is interested has masterminded the jewel theft and has been conspiring with the president of the company in the various sabotage efforts.
Adams’s best novels, Sabotage, Decoy, Up Jumped the Devil, and Shady Lady, are similar in their cynical view of American politics, the variety of their skillfully drawn characters, and the sharp wit of their protagonist, McBride. The diverse elements of Southern California society are excellently drawn. They are novels that should be given serious attention for their contribution to the private-eye genre.
Principal Series Characters:
Rex McBride , a freewheeling, wisecracking private investigator and specialist in insurance cases, is tough, with a widely publicized reputation for shady behavior. About thirty-two years old and unmarried, he lives by a simple guiding principle: to fight as dirty as the other guy does.William Rye , a troubleshooter who prefers to be called a confidential agent, is employed by a Los Angeles oil magnate and political boss. In his thirties, Rye is a tough, ruthlessly efficient, no-nonsense individual.John J. Shannon , a private investigator and formerly a detective lieutenant on the Los Angeles police force, is tough, temperamental, but at times compassionate. He is unmarried, young, and handsome. He also has a penchant for obscenities.
Bibliography
Baker, Robert A., and Michael T. Nieztzel. Private Eyes: 101 Knights—A Survey of American Detective Fiction, 1922-1984. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1985. Discusses the distinctively American aspects of Adams’s work. Indexes.
Geherin, David. The American Private Eye: The Image in Fiction. New York: F. Ungar, 1985. Examines fictional American private detectives in relation to their British precursors and counterparts. Sheds light on Adams’s work. Bibliography and index.
Moore, Lewis D. Cracking the Hard-Boiled Detective: A Critical History from the 1920s to the Present. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006. A study of the hard-boiled subgenre from Raymond Chandler to Sue Grafton; provides a framework for understanding Adams.
Nevins, Francis M., Jr. “The World of Cleve F. Adams.” The Armchair Detective 8 (1974/1975): 195-201. Discusses the rules and conventions unique to Adams’s fiction and the character types that inhabit it.
Scaggs, John. Crime Fiction. New York: Routledge, 2005. Contains an essay on hard-boiled fiction as well as a section on the Golden Age of mystery; provides a background against which to place Adams.