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McGivern, William P

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William P McGivern Source: Books and Writers

William Peter McGivern (1924-1982) was an American novelist and screenplay writer, who published over 20 novels covering the wide genre of thrillers - homicide detection, espionage, political corruption, the world of psychopath, the crooked cop.

McGivern's noir tale of three losers, Odds Against Tomorrow (1957), was filmed in 1959, starring Robert Ryan and Harry Belafonte.

William P. McGivern was born in Chicago, but grew up in Mobile, Alabama. His father was the son of a farmer, and mother, Julia Costello, a dress-maker, who had a shop, Madame Julia's, in Chicago. After quitting high school McGivern started to write. He worked at the Pullman Company and read on his spare time such authors as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Hawthorne. In 1940 his works were published in Amazing Stories, Short Stories, etc. From 1943 to 1946 he served in the U.S. Army as a line sergeant and won the Soldier's Medal - he jumped on a bombed tanker and opened the valves to release the gas inside, thereby saving its trapped crew.

Before returning to the United States he studied at the University of Birmingham. McGivern left the service in January 1946, and worked then for two years as a police reporter for the Philadelphia Bulletin. Between the years 1949 and 1951 McGivern was a reporter and reviewer in Evening Bulletin in Philadelphia. His first novel, But Death Runs Faster, appeared in 1948. It was was followed by several other hard-boiled novels. McGivern shared an Edgar 1954 because he wrote the novel that was the basis of The Big Heat, the winner in the MWA's "Best Motion Picture" catagory that year. He served as president of the Mystery Writers of America in 1980. He also taught creative writing at the University of North Carolina. He married the writer Maureen Daly in 1948.

In the 1960s McGivern moved to Hollywood and wrote for TV films. Odds Against Tomorrow was adapted into screen two years later. In the story a former cop (Ed Begley, Sr.), a war veteran (Robert Ryan), and a black gambler and jazzman (Harry Belafonte) team up for a bank robbery. The enterprise fails because of their own racist hatred and a small town sheriff who turns out to be a vigilant. The film was directed by Robert Wise for Harry Belafonte's company. McGivern was married to Maureen Daly, an editor and author of Seventeenth Summer and other books for young people. McGivern died on November 18, 1982.

Several of McGivern's stories dealt with crooked and rogue cops. In The Big Heat (1953) Sergeant Bannion is disturbed after the suicide of colleague Duncan. He becomes suspicious that Duncan was on payroll of corrupt civic leader Alexander Scourby. Bannion ignores warnings and a bomb planted in his car kills his wife. After resigning from the police force Bannion starts his revenge on all those responsible for his wife's death. He discovers a nest of corruption which includes a number of high police officials. The gangster's moll Debby helps Bannion and comes forward to identify his wife's killer.

This "tempting indulgence", as McGivern called it, was further examined in the disillusioned crime story, Rogue Cop (1954), in which a crooked police detective who tracks down his brother's killer by turning against the Syndicate that pays him. Detective Edmond O'Brien murders a bookmaker in Shield for Murder (1954) and in The Darkest Hour (1956) an ex-waterfront cop out of prison goes after the man who framed him for manslaughter. The theme fascinated the author because "the frustration of our society forms a powerful thrust for people to take the law into their own hands and, while this is a tempting indulgence, I have tried to make it plain in my books that it never really works."

McGivern's later books had foreign locales, usually Spain or Morocco. Rome provided the background for the counterespionage activities of a young American engineer in Margin of Terror (1953). Night of the Juggler (1975, filmed in 1980) was a chase thriller, where a New Yorker pursues the kidnapper of his daughter.

'Novak leaned back on the bed and the overhead light touched the speculative glimmer in his little eyes. It's a kind of a decisive age though. At thirty-five a guy should know whether or not he's going to make it." He grinned at Earl's puzzled frown, and then his eyes wandered casually over Earl's suit and shoes. "How do you figure you're doing? Got it made yet?"' (from Odds Against Tomorrow)

McGivern’s writing style, subject matter and themes are neither for the fainthearted nor for those seeking a high amount of classic detection. Whether tackling police corruption, political corruption, union corruption or civic corruption, he zeroed in on the weaknesses of society and created compelling crime stories that are still entertaining and meaningful half a century after they were written.

-- Bob Schneider 05/08