The Dead Ringer
Set in the mid-1930s in Montana, The Dead Ringer is a tautly written crime drama about two brothers who grow up in Minnesota and become bank robbers at an early age. We go back in time to their youth when Benjamin Kilt drives a getaway car for a bank robber at age 10. His older half-brother, Sidney Bosco, was abandoned by their mother. She later committed suicide. He and Benjamin begin robbing banks together. They have a falling out after they rob the St. Regis Savings & Loan. Sidney savagely beats and buries Benjamin alive, leaves him for dead, and goes on the lam.
From this point on, the novel focuses on Benjamin hunting his brother down for revenge. His search involves a stressful journey from Minnesota to Montana. He learns that his brother is living on a cattle farm called Triple Nine Ranch in Black Elk, Montana.
The bulk of the novel is a killing spree by both brothers. Characters we barely meet are blown away, shot in the head, and murdered. One female commits suicide. There are a lot of well-written, staccato-like dialogues and brief, but evocative descriptions of Montana landscapes, skies, and wilds. Yet, ultimately, the dead bodies that pile up seem like just so much gratuitous violence. We don’t know the victims or the character of their killers well enough to comprehend what motivates the relentless onslaught. The characters have only tenuous connections to one another, apart from the two brothers. Perhaps senseless violence is Mr. Bahr’s intended message, but Benjamin’s occasional inner monologues suggest otherwise.
There are similarities to Jim Thompson’s crime novels, such as The Getaway and The Grifters, but the reader feels little empathy for or understanding of any of the characters except to feel certain they all will come to violent ends.
