It’s been forty years since the initial publication of The Accomplice, so I was pleased to see this handsome new edition from Stairway Press, which adds a foreword from the author which provides not only a look at this book’s origins, but also a revealing glimpse into Ponicsan’s life in general, reflecting on his early successes in writing, most notably with the novelsThe Last Detail and Cinderella Liberty (both adapted for film). In all Ponicsan published eight books in a ten year period, but his screenplay for Cinderella Liberty earned him a solid place in that profession for over twenty-five years.

I read almost all of Ponicsan’s books back in the seventies, before he disappeared into that other field and for years I often wondered what happened to him. Now I know - all those years churning out screenplays, then, more recently four PI novels under the pen name of Anne Argula, as well as painting and sculpting.

The Accomplice is a book certainly deserving of another go-around. Thirty-ish Harold “Beef” Buddusky, is a very different kind of hero. Described as “a dumb drifter looking for a home,” he washes up in Colorado Springs. Originally from the Pennsylvania coal-mining region, he’s served a hitch in the military, left behind a wife and a small son (named Nelson - shades of Rabbit, Run), done some time in the slammer (“behind Old Crossbars”), and hitchhiked and drunk himself across America, picking up odd jobs here and there along the way. In the Springs, our ‘hero’ finds what seems like a home, spending his days with Ginny Wynn, a seemingly generous and warm-hearted woman, and her ‘sidekick,’ Mrs. Lister, an absent-minded octogenarian.

The plot thickens - and darkens - when Beef learns of Ginny’s obsessive attachment to her adult son, Gordie, a young policeman, who attempts to break this bond by secretly marrying and impregnating Maria, a beautiful young Hispanic woman. Ginny wants Maria dead, but Beef, who falls impossibly in love with the beautiful Maria on sight, wants no part of it. A couple of clumsy hired killers join the cast, and what started out comically takes a deeply dark and tragic turn. Terrified, Beef runs, but in the end, he is unable to stay away.

In this surprisingly complex tale of crime and punishment, Ponicsan draws from a deep and murky well of influences. Yes, count Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov in there. And, with the characters of Gordie and “Ginnie Mom,” and the intimations of an ‘unnatural’ mother-son relationship, you might also recall Earl Thompson’s gritty underground classic of Depression-era Kansas,A Garden of Sand.

A minor character, sheriff’s deputy Ronnie Fischer, will raise the antennae of dedicated Ponicsan fans. Described as an “ex-Navy signalman” whose military career was scuttled by “causing $2000 worth of damage in a Honolulu bar and sending two Marines to the hospital with serious jaw fractures,” Fischer's character is a not-so-subtle nod to Billy “Bad-Ass” Buddusky, hero of The Last Detail. (Can a writer be influenced by his own work? Apparently so.)

No longer “the slow-witted Salvation Army day worker become roofing man,” Beef Buddusky undergoes a gradual and irreversible transformation as he tries desperately to understand how everything went so tragically wrong, and seeks forgiveness by reinventing himself as a person who tries to help others. A radical reversal reminiscent of another character, Frank Alpine, in Malamud’s tragic tale of suffering and redemption,The Assistant.

I finished reading this book nearly a week ago, but I’m still thinking about it. It’s that kind of book, and highly deserving of a brand new audience. Very highly recommended. ( )