The Golden Gizmo (Mulholland Classic) by Jim Thompson

The Golden Gizmo (Mulholland Classic) Reviews

• 
  Brian

  When it’s well over 100 degrees and you’re trying to find comfort in your drought addled, heat stroked confines it’s the right time to serve yourself up some 1950s crime fiction – hard boiled, naturally.
  
  Despite its weak title this short, fast moving novel has a lot going for it. The protagonist is a small time con man with a long streak of getting himself out of hotspots while searching for the next grift. Thompson moves the action along mainly through the use of dialogue giving the story a frantic pacing that reads as much like a screenplay as it does a novel. Fans of Thompson’s work can expect all of the surprise twists and triple-crosses that keep both the novel’s characters and reader on their toes.
• 
  Dave Schaafsma

  One of the noir master's lesser works which is short, and I read it fast. Found it at a used bookstore!
  Thompson once lived on the road as a self-described hobo, and so he knows about the life of Toddy Kent, former hobo who nows buys gold door-to-door, for a Dutchman named Milt VonderHeer--or is Milt really German, an ex-Nazi? Toddy is inexplicably married to a drunk named Elaine, and he thinks he makes a huge score when he visits the house of a chinless guy who has heavy 14k gold watch. That he steals, of course. Which sets the whole crazy set of wheels turning.
  
  Oh, and there's a talking dog. Of course?! (No real reason, though maybe it's for laughs. It's just weird, there's no explanation in the world-building for it).
  
  Toddy, a short con punk, thinks he has a "golden gizmo," a kind of sixth sense that leads him to fortune, though it is also true he is wanted for scams in several states, so you may not want to trust his version of any events. There's a woman named Delores that seems to be interested in the "slick" Toddy, who gets sent by Milt for unclear reasons to Tijuana, where ex-Nazis and Spanish fascists chase him around. And then he goes to jail, though the warden inexplicably lets him out--with a gun, a car, and spending money--to let him solve his own crime??!! That's about as credible as the talking dog. Though maybe I am mis-reading this book and he mainly wants it to be seen as comedy? But I doubt it. I just think it's wacky.
  
  I thought the plot convoluted, nothing in the realm of his The Killer in Me or The Grifters, but the ending is nevertheless pretty terrific, full of surprises and twists I didn't see coming. My three stars has maybe something to do with its contrast to his best books, and that damned dog. Oh, and some elements of the strange plot, though it has pulpy noir elements that are amusing. It just lacks the shuddering dark moral vacuum at the heartless center of his best work. Start with one of seven or eight of his better books before you wallow in this particular gutter. And if you see Toddy at your door, don't answer the bell, I say.
• 
  Dave

  The Golden Gizmo (1954) is one of the oddest novels from Thompson, long-considered to be the most off-beat crime fiction writers. The key to this story is the paragraph in chapter two where Thompson explains that Todd Kent was born with a gizmo, something that changed from day to day, “that was too whimsical in its influence to be bracketed as a gift, talent, aptitude, or trait. For most of the thirty years of his life, the gizmo had pushed him into the smelly caverns where the easy money lay. All his life — and always without warning — it had hustled him out through soul-skinning, nerve-searing exits.” In short, fate was fickle with Kent and changed from moment to moment.
  
  Kent was a conman who moved from town to town, looking for one petty score or another. “The gizmo was fickle, and he was ridden, rousted and floated.”
  
  He married Elaine, knowing she’d be drunken trouble and no amount of sorting out would ever calm her down.
  
  In Los Angeles, he found a semi-legitimate gig as a gold buyer who would go door to door looking to con the soft, the foolish, and the elderly out of their gold jewelry, selling it to the middleman he worked for and turning s fine profit. Kent “moved into the con games as naturally as a blonde into a mink coat.”
  
  The story turns twisted as Kent meets a chinless man with a magic watch, a talking and singing dog, and an errand girl going by the name of Dolores.
  
  He thinks he’s on to something when he finds a heavyweight watch that he takes almost by accident which is worth its weight in 24 k gold. But he flees when he discovers a nude corpse stretched out in his bed, one stocking tied around her throat, the other stuffed in her mouth.
  
  From there, he somehow flees into a theater where the singing dog who finds him gets him kicked out of the theater though no one finds it that unusual. Kent finds himself drugged, jailed, and mixed up in smuggling gold for Nazis into Mexico. Get your scorecard out cause little of this makes sense. Just remember Kent was born with a gizmo and it makes his luck shift on a dime so no matter what happens to him, just wait a minute and his luck will change.
  
  The Golden Gizmo feels weird and disjointed even by Jim Thompson standards. For good reason, this is one of his lesser-known works.
• 
  Kirk Smith

  One of the lowest rated Thompsons, but still good. I do certainly love his style. Oh, and there was a trained Doberman that could practically speak the human language. A good bit of fun.
• 
  David

  Six months from now, I will remember three things about this novel: (1) A female characters gets pistol-whipped in the breasts; (2) the protagonist revives a dying woman with coffee and then immediately has sex with her; and (3) there is a talking dog.
• 
  Jim

  As a novel,
  Jim Thompson's
  The Golden Gizmo was pretty good of and by itself -- one never knew who were the good guys, if there were any -- but it would have made a great treatment for a film.
  
  Small-time con man Toddy Kent gets in way above his head when he palms a heavy gold watch and returns home to find his wife (apparently) dead. There are a number of baddies, real and potential, and as the reader one never knows where one stands. One even doubts Toddy at times. But then there are chinless Alvarado, Dolores, a strange talking dog, Shake, Donald, and Milt -- any one of whom could have killed Toddy's wife. Well, maybe not the dog, as she appeared to be strangled.
  
  Reading Jim Thompson is one of my guilty pleasures. At best, he is world class. At his work, he's still pretty good. This novel is right in the middle.
• 
  Stephanie

  Another great read by Mr. Thompson. I know I'm a complete sell out for anything this guy wrote but still,it doesn't change the fact that it becomes a bit more obvious every single time that Thompson is the master of Pulp/Pop fiction.
  I mean seriously, who can introduce a talking dog in a book and still manage for every reader to be like: yeah, makes sense, pretty common, I buy that? Jim Thompson, that's who.
  The Golden Gizmo is like any other Jim's books, it makes you feel like you're driving full speed on the highway.
• 
  Bruce

  Fascinating, furious, and funny. One of Thompson's lightest books...but still a good portion of noir.
• 
  C. McGee

  Less existential dread than your average Jim Thompson. More of a traditional, intricate, well-paced thriller. In some ways this made it better. Not what I was expecting but delightful nonetheless.
• 
  ?0?0?0

  This is a 3.5/5
  
  "The Golden Gizmo" was written the year Jim Thompson's deranged masterpiece, "King Blood", was penned, but it's a different beast. It reads almost as if Thompson had become so drained and mentally scarred from the writing of, "King Blood", that he had to write something lighter, and that piece of fluff turned into, "The Golden Gizmo".
  
  The story is about Toddy Kent, another door-to-door salesman character in a Thompson novel, who specializes in gold. He has something inside, another sense, his "golden gizmo", that sends him to high quality gold and, as we will find out, to his downfall. Toddy is married to yet-another nagging wife character who should've been served divorce papers in the first chapter, but Toddy's not the brightest con man around, and his aloofness spills over into his romantic choices. As the story progresses, Toddy falls in with the wrong people on a score he believes could be a ticket out, for he may be a con man, but he's planning on escaping the lifestyle. His escape becomes problematic as he runs into former German Nazis and Spanish fascists, crazy women with uncertain motives, a maid he ignores who's warning him to stay far away, a chinless man, and of course, a talking dog. With this cast of characters in any other writer's hands could result in something approaching nonsense, but Thompson makes it all seem natural - natural to the simple crime story he's concocted. If this were a noir movie from the 40's - 50's, it might make for an entertaining one, perhaps a great one if it found the correct director. As a novel, though, it feels too slight. There's enough whacky moments and characters to lead one to believe Thompson is up to something bizarre, but, instead, it becomes clear as the chapters go by that he's written a thrilling crime novel that's one of his quickest read. As a sacrifice for his chosen style, the novel has a deficit of elements usually taken from his great, strange, dark well where the best parts of his fiction come from. It is not, by a long shot, a terrible book, and certainly not awful like readers on the internet describe it as - it's simple: fans of Jim Thompson that don't mind when his style shifts out of the darkness to revel in goofy crime plots or readers that like to read a fun mid-century noir and/or hard-boiled crime novel, this might be the novel to read.
  
• 
  Bobby

  Even for Thompson this is a weird one. That said, it's still a fun read.
  
  A lot gets packed into this quick novel. Similar to Nothing More Than Murder, much of the success of The Golden Gizmo depends on how much you know of a particular industry. In this case, it's the borderline legal gold trade in post world war 2 Los Angeles.
  
  Toddy Kent is a door-to-door gold buyer, by way of being wanted in half of the country. With the exception of a violent, fall down drunk, alcoholic wife, life isn't too bad for Kent.
  
  Until one day on his rounds, he knocks on the wrong door. A chinless man with a talking doberman (don't ask) answers and soon thereafter, Kent finds himself wrapped up in a messy sea of double crosses and betrayals. A murder gets thrown in for fun, some two-bit gangsters keep coming around, there's seedy Tijuana bar, a Nazi conspiracy, federal agents, and did I mention a killer talking dog?
  
  The highlight of the novel is a chase scene that takes you through the edges of LA's underworld hidden in the slums and skid row abandoned buildings. I half-expected Charles Bukowski to pop up and tell everyone to keep the goddamn noise down.
  
  Ultimately, while there's a lot of thrills to be had, it's still a mess. Toddy Kent doesn't really compare to Thompson protagonists. He's sort of forgettable, but he does have his moments, especially as the last few pages ramp up.
  
  The Golden Gizmo is worth it for Thompson completionists who know what to expect. If you're new to Thompson, start with The Grifters.
• 
  Joseph Hirsch

  The more Jim Thompson I read, the more convinced I become that he's even more off-kilter than noir master Charles Willeford, and that's saying something.
  
  Toddy Kent is a door-to-door gold dealer, basically operating a mobile pawnshop out of his bag, in and around postwar Los Angeles. His mission in life is to beat the marks on transactions, getting them to part with their gold for lowball offers. He splits the difference with Milt, a stoop-shouldered shyster who operates out of a caged enclosure in a dingy shopfront. At home, Toddy's got a girlfriend named Elaine, an ex-part time actress and full-time alky who drinks like a guppy but bites like a barracuda.
  
  Things are not great for Toddy, but they could be worse. Then, one day while hustling the marks for their gold, he runs across an old man with a curiously heavy pocket watch, a Doberman whose barks sound suspiciously like a human voice, and a young, beautiful girlfriend whom he tyrannizes and humiliates (and after whom Toddy openly lusts).
  
  It's a strange start, and things only get stranger. It's not Thompson's best effort, but it'll kill some time and entertain you. And a couple of the chase scenes are exquisite, and reveal Thompson at his deft and pulpy best. He always gets top marks with fans for his characterizations and his dialogue, so it's nice to see him flex a different set of muscles and handle the foot chases like an old pro. Recommended.
• 
  Nathaniel BB

  Fun in many ways, but a real slog in many others. Very un-Jim levels of shoe gazing, thumb-twiddling ink-burning minutiae. Usually it’s a lovable or engaging ennui, here it smells like contract fulfillment.
  
  Certain parts of this frustration seem intentionally perplexing, and even satirical. Much of the plot’s unraveling reads like a searing parody of overly convoluted schemes typical of hard-boiled yarns. “If I know that you know that she knew that he knew that they know that I did or did not do this and that” - so on and so forth.
  
  However, it’s also got a cracking final stretch, that plays like a suspenseful denouement in a gnarly onscreen neonoir. Splendid setup of the endgame, and a fittingly Thompson-esque conclusion. Substantially improved by the end. Not bad.
• 
  Becky Brinkley

  The Golden Gizmo is my favorite Jim Thompson book of all. I've read so many of his and wish he had written some more.
  Special gifts can get one in deep doo-doo. The Golden Gizmo is like dark chocolate, simply delicious, delightful and decadent in its darkness.
  Review by Becky Brinkley, author of BONFYRE
• 
  Michael

  The price of reading all of a favorite author's work is that inevitably you'll eventually find the duds. Thompson is famously inconsistent--wrote fast, for money, sometimes drunk, and while when he was good, he was very, very good, this particular title is a big, incomprehensible mess. "My" golden gizmo was on the fritz while reading this.
• 
  Guy Salvidge

  This early Thompson novel starts off quite promisingly in a similar vein to The Grifters. I enjoyed the first half, but in the second part the plot became convoluted and beyond my ability (or desire) to comprehend. Still, it isn't his worst. Oh, and there's a talking dog.
• 
  Jake

  The Year of Jim Thompson continues with another downer. Man, his bad books are just bad, period. Not even "bad by high standards", but borderline unreadable. Only recommended for Thompson completists. 
• 
  Jade Aslain

  This just might be my favorite Jim Thompson so far...
• 
  Jay

  There’s a talking Doberman and a carnivalesque scene about a third of the way through the novel that epitomizes Thompson’s style (at least in this story).
• 
  Richard Schaefer

  The Golden Gizmo is one of Thompson’s more obscure novels, written in the middle of his prolific period of the 1950s. I can’t say it’s a hidden gem; in its own right, it leans too far into humor and quirky surrealism (a dog that talks, a number of improbable yet predictable twists), and lacks the psychological insight Thompson usually brings to his work. It’s okay, the dude wrote fast and prolifically, they’re not all going to be amazing. It also suffered by comparison, since I read it right after a Hell of a Woman, which features a protagonist (if that’s the word) who has a similar career and a similar lack of moral scruples. The difference is, a Hell of a Woman is amazing, and the Golden Gizmo never transcends “just okay.”
• 
  Adam McPhee

  Hobos, nazis, bale bondsmen, back alleys in Tijuana, door-to-door gold buyers, a talking dog. It gets convoluted fast. The protagonist is a former hobo, and it seems like most of the book is Thompson displaying his hobo knowledge, but he's not proud of it. (Thompson was himself a hobo before finding work with the WPA during the depression). It's weird because hobo knowledge is always weirdly specific (there's a debate on whether or not you can drug black coffee, a bit on how to cheat at dice if you shoot from a cup, and one of the burglars uses the improvised chicken claw weapon), and also old-timey (a lot of the plot relies on the ins and outs of smuggling gold bullion during the gold standard years).
• 
  Jess

  ahhh. yeah, there's the fix. lotsa pulpy, page-swishing plot with 2 or 3 good twists that come faster and harder as you reach the end of the book. all the must-haves are here: the con man, the cold-hearted dame, the good girl, the old-school hardass, the freaky guy ... oh, and a talking dog. never quite figured out the dog's reason for being here -- other than to increase the freak factor of the freaky guy -- but whatevs. it didn't distract at all from the story of a guy who has to cut some ugly deals just to stay alive.
• 
  Bookendsused Pefferly

  I found a clutch of Jim Thompson novels at the Goodwill. It was like winning the lottery (in a Jim Thompson kind of way).
  
  I immediately devoured this one. I liked it a lot. The Golden Gizmo is a sort of 6th Sense that the protagonist has that either leads him to hidden riches or hidden trouble. As one would expect from Thompson, it was an excellent crime novel with a few surreal touches to keep it from being bland. I liked the talking Doberman myself.
  
  It's not quite up there with The Master and Margarita but it is well worth the read.
• 
  Phillip Frey

  Toddy Kent has a sixth sense, one that guides him to where the easy money is. Something that will unexpectedly lead to his wife's murder. What follows is Kent's attempt to escape from those who then pursue him.
• 
  David

  Toddy's got a sense for a short con. He calls it his golden gizmo yet it eventually it always leads to trouble. When he is framed for a crime he didn't commit what results is a clever, if some what generic noir.
• 
  Anders

  Jim Thompson - always amusing, and unpredictable, double-crossing characters, greed, etc. This one i didn't find as gripping as some other Thompsons but it's diggable stuff, talking dog and chinless man included.
• 
  David

  A weak entry for the master of Noir Fiction.
  
  If you are a hardcore Thompson fan you may find some of the characters compelling but the plot is predictable and the outcome foreordained.
  
  Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
• 
  Danpolonsky

  ...Never trust a talking dog, a man with no chin, dames, and anyone else you might meet.