William Ard’s vintage hard-boiled thriller YOU’LL GET YOURS is a snappy little volume that covers a lot of story territory in under 200 pages. Lean like great noir.

It’s a private eye novel, though the gumshoe in this becomes less neutral than that archetype is sometimes wont to be. In my mind, he is a cross between the private dick and the harried anti-hero of classic hard-boiled fiction.

At any rate, YOU’LL GET YOURS is a marvelous take on the genre and brings with it a grim, unpredictable story. Snappy dialogue and twisting tale-telling stand Ard in good stead in this 1952 yarn. It’s packed with brutality and sensuality as per genre standards.

A touch of the entertainment industry and underground nude photography are compelling plot elements. The stolen valuables, you see, upon which the PI’s case initially seems to hinge, are really just a red herring.

That’s not a spoiler; you’ll find out quick things aren’t the way they seem.

But isn’t that always the case with great noir? Isn’t that how it should be?