{"id":42928,"date":"2026-10-09T07:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T11:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=42928"},"modified":"2026-09-26T16:31:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T20:31:20","slug":"night-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=42928","title":{"rendered":"NIGHT SQUAD by David Goodis \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

NIGHT SQUAD<\/a> by David Goodis<\/strong><\/p>\n

First sentence\u2026<\/p>\n

At 11:20 a fairly well-dressed boozehound came staggering out of a bootleg-whiskey joint on Fourth Street.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Overview:\u00a0 Beware of Spoilers\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Corey Bradford is a thirty-four-year-old ex-cop on a downnward spiral.\u00a0 His wife left him.\u00a0 Still no steady job.\u00a0 He drinks too much.\u00a0 All because he took a small handout from a gambler.\u00a0 It wasn’t a big bribe to cover up evidence.\u00a0 It wasn’t to let a hardened criminal walk.\u00a0 It was just a sweetener\u00a0<\/em>because Bradford was a decent cop.\u00a0 And it cost him everything.<\/p>\n

Then one night Bradford, with just a couple of bucks to his name, headed to Grogan’s bar. Walter Grogan ran a nightly poker game in the back room and Bradford hoped to get in and get lucky.\u00a0 That all changed when two masked-wearing and pistol-carrying men busted in.\u00a0 They weren’t there to rob the game.\u00a0 No, they came to kidnap Grogan.\u00a0 Before they could Bradford stopped ’em cold.<\/p>\n

Grogan was impressed.\u00a0 He knew Bradford’s reputation and now had seen him in action.\u00a0 So he offers Bradford a job.\u00a0 $15,000 if Bradford can find out who sent the kidnappers.\u00a0 Bradford accepts the job.<\/p>\n

That evening Bradford is picked up by Detective-Sergeant Henry McDermott.\u00a0 McDermott runs the Night Squad, a team of cops working the night shift who target and take down the city’s worst. The Night Squad’s tactics are brutal and extreme.\u00a0 They get the job done. McDermott wants Grogan behind bars.\u00a0 Walter Grogan runs the part of town known as The Swamp.\u00a0 Grogan has his fingers in everyt illegal racket there.\u00a0 But he’s too smart to get caught.<\/p>\n

So McDermott offers Bradford a chance at redemption.\u00a0 If Bradford works undercover and gathers evidence to bring Grogan to justice, he can get his badge back.\u00a0 Refuse and the Night Squad will target him.\u00a0 Bradford accepts.<\/p>\n

Bradford is playing a dangerous game.\u00a0 Working both sides against each other can get him dead.<\/p>\n

And someone besides Bradford knows the score…<\/p>\n

+++<\/p>\n

David Goodis takes us on another journey to the seedy side of town.\u00a0 I’m surprised NIGHT SQUAD was never adapted into a movie.\u00a0 It would have made a good one.<\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NIGHT SQUAD by David Goodis First sentence\u2026 At 11:20 a fairly well-dressed boozehound came staggering out of a bootleg-whiskey joint<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[52,51,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-crime","category-z-view"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42928"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42932,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42928\/revisions\/42932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}