The Sadist is a sleaze paperback from 1962, one that is usually credited to (future best seller) Lawrence Block (writing under a pseudonym). This piece ranks as one of the most depraved and amoral books I've read, alongside the hideous and poetic polemic Bronson: Blind Rage by "Philip Rawls" (which I've also reviewed).
Although perhaps nothing can rival the extremity and disgusting creativity of a Wade Garrett book (excepting maybe some by Edward Lee), The Sadist and Blind Rage are not extreme horror, but amoral crime novels with corroded world views that take place on a sickly planet earth. Thus the nastiness in The Sadist is not a bravura display of repellent ingenuity, but an extension of the character's vile subconscious.
That the authors of both books wrote under false names is not telling of the quality of the books, which is quite high, but the odious content presented therein.
The Sadist is about a hitman, which is usually not my favorite subject matter for a crime book or movie, since button men are usually aloof and dispassionate mechanics or swaggering perfectionists who have some moral boundaries. Not so with the titular character in The Sadist. Protagonist Jack Garth is an uncommonly mean ultra alpha, but his methodology/intellect and his nasty impulses are not always in synch. It is interesting to follow his warped thought process as he tries to justify doing things that he knows he shouldn't do...
The setup involves him being hired to go to Albany to murder an entire family---mother, father, three kids---so that an indebted dude will receive an inheritance and can pay back his mob debt. Life is very, very cheap in this book.
The other main thread involves an amateur prostitute, and this story feels a bit like padding thrown in to grow the novel to full length (and provide other different sexual scenarios). In the end, it is interesting enough, though not as compelling or harrowing or surprising as the bulldozing Jack Garth sequences.
While some sleaze paperbacks from this era did little more than provide colorful breast metaphors and vaguely described "aberrant" sexual behavior, this book genuinely feels like it might have been illegal to own. An ugly and crisp piece of hate, The Sadist delivers far, far, far more nastiness than the lurid cover suggests.