Review: "High Stakes" by John Lutz

“High Stakes” by John Lutz from American Pulp, ed. by Gorman, Pronzini & Greenberg Carroll & Graf, 1997   John Lutz, who died in Jan. 2021 from complications of Covid at the age of 81, was a writer that was (and still is) often overlooked. Sure, he had a couple novels translated into film, including the box office hit, Single White Female (1992), starring Bridget Fonda, but it’s rare to see Lutz on anyone’s favorite author list. Maybe it’s because he had a chameleon-like ability to adapt his writing to meet market changes: He started writing suspense in the 1970s, shifted to P.I. tales in the 1980s, then in the 1990s and 2000s he rode the serial killer wave until it smashed itself dead against the rocks. And then in the late-2010s he busted out a couple espionage thrillers. Or, and this more likely, there is some other reason that I haven’t identified yet. But one thing I know: I’ve never read a John Lutz tale—novel or short story—I didn’t like. For me, one of Lutz’s greatest accomplishments for a late-20th Century fictionist is the volume of short stories he published. My guess is, and this is purely speculative, Lutz’s byline appeared on more than 100 short tales that appeared in digests and anthologies. His first, “Thieves’ Honor,” appeared in the Dec. 1966 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and he kept on publishing well into the 21st Century. Which brings me to Lutz’s exceptionally good, “High Stakes”—originally published in the June 1984 issue of The Saint. Ernie is a degenerate gambler with an instinct for survival, but his luck went sour and now he’s hiding in a crummy room in a crummier hotel. He’s dressed in a dirty brown suit and a wrinkled white shirt because he had to abandon his smart clothes as he hustled away from his last hotel ahead of the bill. Even worse, Ernie owes a substantial sum to a card sharp, Carl Atwater, with a violent reputation and there is no telling what Atwater and his goons will do to Ernie when they find him. “Thieves’ Honor” was written in the 1980s, but it has the feel of 1950s pulp; which is good since I dig that kind of thing. Ernie’s plight is well described—as is Ernie in all his cockroach glory—and Lutz takes the story into unexpected places. At least I had no idea where it was going until it got there. There is true suspense, which Lutz is exceedingly good at writing, and that final climactic twist is as ironic as anything I’ve read in a good long while. In a couple words: “Thieves’ Honor” is damn fun.