Boxer

IROX MAN--W. R. Burnett--Dial ($2.50).

Author Burnett's first book, Little Caesar, was about a Chicago gangster; his second is the tale of a prizefighter. He writes, not for men only, but primarily for men. Women play a small part in his stories and he writes always from and to a strictly masculine point of view.

William C. ("Coke") Mason was a one-time factory hand from Ohio, whom his boyhood pal George Regan coached, bullied, kidded into a middleweight boxer of championship calibre. Soon after Coke left the factory, his wife, a small-time gold digger with big-time aspirations, left him flat. Coke brooded over her defection, but Regan thought it was a good thing. Coke's wicked left hook, his ability to take punishment, began to win him a more than local reputation. No ring-general, Coke took his orders for each fight from Regan. When he knocked out Prince Pearl, shifty Negro boxer, he hoped it would give him a chance to meet Champion Mike Shay. When the fight finally took place it was a near thing: Mike floored Coke once, had him groggy, but Coke outlasted him, won by a knockout.

Champion at last, Coke yearned for his wife. He wrote her a letter; Regan intercepted it. Finally, Coke's fame spreading and her pocketbook thinning, she found him. Coke was delighted, Regan disgusted. Soon Rose began to lead Coke a dance. She dragged him to night clubs, introduced him to flashy theatrical people, badgered him until he let her go on the stage again. Very soon she was unfaithful to him. simple-minded Coke suspecting nothing. Regan saw what was going on, tried to warn Coke; they drifted apart. Once when Regan was drunk he spoke out; Coke knocked him down. Then they were enemies : Regan tore up their contract, coached Rattler O'Keefe to take Coke's title away from him.

When Coke trained for his fight with O'Keefe, everything seemed to go wrong: he was overweight, his camp was so badly managed he had to run it himself, his legs felt dead. Just before the fight Regan, again drunk, went to Coke's dressing room and told him who his wife's lover was. Coke went out to meet defeat with nothing but despair in his heart. For eight rounds he went hammer & tongs, batted O'Keefe all around the ring, couldn't knock him out. In the ninth round he knew it was all over. ". . . Something reached out of the darkness and belted him on the jaw. He felt the canvas again, but under his back this time; he heard the dim roar but it was receding now, and the rain was falling on his face. 'Nine!' Hell! Up again. Wouldn't this round never end? But somebody had him by the wrist, pulling him to his feet. The fight was over."

The Author. Author William R. Burnett is the first U. S. writer to have his first two books selected by book-of-the-month club. Born in Springfield, Ohio, in 1899, he went to Miami Military Institute. Ohio State University (for one semester). He thought of becoming a prizefighter, an actor, a jazzbandsman. When he decided to be a writer, he realized that he had to get a job, became a statistician in Ohio's Department of Industrial Relations. He is married, lives in Los Angeles, is writing another novel, to be published next fall.

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