Books: Steps Going Down by Joseph Hansen (1985)

“Darryl Cutler knows a good thing when he sees it -- and old Stewart Moody's fortune is the best thing he's ever seen. So Darryl takes care of the dying old man, knowing the promised inheritance is well worth the wait. Or so Darryl believes, until something even better comes along. When Chick Pelletier, a young sunny-haired would-be actor appears on the scene Darryl is obsessed: he'll do anything to please Chick. But Darryl has finally met the hustler who can out-hustle him, and the stakes are getting higher all the time.” 

I’m unsure of writer Joseph Hansen’s motives here, as the book plays out more like a psycho-drama between two men willing to do anything to maintain the glamorous lifestyle of the rich. Darryl is a hustler, but seemly with a bit of moral fiber, where Chick (a sort of hapless take on Patricia Highsmith’s Talented Mr. Ripley?) has no scruples and easily convinces Darryl to commit murder (they almost leap right to it). But, as the cover says, it’s a “tawdry” tale that makes the reader a bit uncomfortable to read it to completion. There is at no point in the book where anyone is likable, even Darryl’s life choices can be blamed on his horrible, good for nothing Mother, who chipped any potential goodness out him when he was a child. She’s definitely a domineering woman who got hurt and made Darryl pay for it through insults and uncaring upbringing. I think, though, her way of emasculating her son was enough for him to move out of Portland, so I kind of felt the Darryl accidentally running over and killing a 11 year-old boy was a bit overkill. 

Much of the book involves the on again off again relationship between Chick and Darryl, two people who should never be together, but somehow keep crashing into each other, keep needing each other, both loving and hating each other. The other plot point involves plagiarizing the script to a TV movie, which in 1984 probably sounded realistic, but forty-two years later seems a bit silly. 

There is a nice plot twist at the end, one I certainly did not see coming, but it’s about the only thing I can recommend here, because unlike Hansen’s Dave Brandsetter books, which went out its way to show the darkness at the heart of Southern California lifestyle, the only thing Steps Going Down is Hansen’s prose, which makes the book a worthy read for fans of the writer. Otherwise, this book will leave you a bit queasy and more than feeling a little bit dirty.