Recommended reading - Clean Break, by Lionel White (1955):

Clean Break

By Lionel White.

Filmed as The Killing (1956), directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Published by Chosho Publishing.

First published 1955.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1958425516

ISBN-13: 978-1958425510

Description:

Johnny Clay, an ex-con determined to strike it rich, has worked out a fool-proof scheme to knock off a racetrack payroll. The two million bucks should be enough to last him a lifetime or two. But a two-faced dame has another idea: Let Johnny do the work, then she'll grab the swag for herself and her boyfriend.

Johnny Clay’s plan to rob the Long Island race track was daring and highly original. Johnny, an ex-convict, had spent his prison years thinking through every possible hitch to his scheme until he was sure it could go off like clockwork.

His four confederates were not known to the police for they were not professional criminals. They had been picked because they were ordinary nondescript men, all with money problems and a touch of larceny in their hearts. Mike Henty was a bartender at the track and George Peatty a cashier, both essential inside men. Martin Unger, a court stenographer, had put up the initial cash and Randy Kennan, a cop, was to get the money away from the track after Johnny had done the actual robbing.

There were in addition three others who were to do a specific jobs for a cash payment. To one of these men fell the assignment of shooting the favorite in the famous Canarsie Stakes. Once this was accomplished, the robbery was set into motion.

The crime in this story is a grand coup, fantastic yet completely possible if everything clicked. So too has Lionel White achieved a grand coup in the telling of the story as he concentrates first on one character then on another, picking up the individual threads and building them into a brilliantly integrated climax. Clean Break is a masterpiece of originality, a highly plotted and ingeniously executed story of suspense.

Born on this day – Lionel White:

Lionel White

Writer

July 9, 1905 – December 26, 1985

Credits:

Books:

The Snatchers (1953); To Find a Killer (aka Before I Die) (1954); The Big Caper (1955); Flight Into Terror (1955); The Killing (aka Clean Break) (1955); Love Trap (1955); The House Next Door (1956); Operation - Murder (1956); Death Takes the Bus (1957); Hostage for a Hood (1957); Right for Murder (1957); Coffin for a Hood (1958); Invitation to Violence (1958); Too Young to Die (1958); The Merriweather File (1959); Rafferty (1959); Run, Killer, Run! (1959); Lament for a Virgin (1960); Marilyn K. (1960); Steal Big (1960); The Time of Terror (1960); A Death At Sea (1961); A Grave Undertaking (1961); Obsession (1962); The Money Trap (1963); The Ransomed Madonna (1964); The House On K Street (1965); A Party to Murder (1966); Spykill (1966); The Crimshaw Memorandum (1967); The Night Of The Rape (1967); Hijack (1969); Death of a City (1970); The Mexico Run (1974); A Rich and Dangerous Game (1974); Jailbreak (1976); The Walled Yard (1978); The Time of Terror / A Death At Sea (1961).

Movies and television:

Pierrot the Fool (1965); Rafferty (1980); Reservoir Dogs (1992); The Big Caper (1957); The Hair (1974); The Killing (1956); The Money Trap (1965); The Night of the Following Day (1969); Thriller (1961).