Chartered Love

Not much is known about author Conrad Dawn (1933-2002). He served in the U.S.M.C. From 1951 to 1954 and was wounded in action during America's involvement in the Korean Civil War. According to a brief book bio, Dawn was employed as a sailor, newspaper man, and also boxed. He traveled extensively and was married three times. Paperback Parade founder, writer, and literary scholar Gary Lovisi described the author as having “...the background and lived the life to write these kinds of wild action books true and accurate – and kick-ass!”. Lovisi's commentary on Dawn can be found in a new edition of Chartered Love, the author's 1960 paperback that was originally published by lowly Chicago sleaze word-slingers Novel Books. The novel is now available through Black Gat Books, an imprint of Stark House Press, with the original paperback cover. 

The book stars Captain John Darrow, a 200-pound muscular man with a leathery face blackened by years of hot sunny nautical travels. Darrow ships freight with his boat Malacca Maid and a hardened skipper named Adams. While at a bar in Macao, China, Darrow entertains a lucrative offer. A woman named Elizabeth wants to hire Darrow and his boat to help her locate a treasure she believes is in the Sulu Sea aboard a downed ship. Darrow isn't particularly interested until he hears the terms – four-million in gold for the taking. His share is half. 

The first half of the book details Darrow's preparation for the journey and deep-dive. He buys weapons from a suspicious arms dealer and gathers aquatic gear, both of which attract a Chinese gang led by a villain named Hayama. There's a kick the tires and start the fires battle before Darrow and Elizabeth can get up and running.

The second half of the book focuses on Darrow's chemistry with Elizabeth. The book was presented to consumers as a sleeze novel ripe with graphic sex. Like so many sleaze novels from the likes of Beacon and Monarch, the sex is tepid at a mere PG rating. But, Dawn has a flirtatious style to his writing that describes Elizabeth's undressing in such a marvelous and provocative way. These scenes counterbalance the propulsive central plot. As Darrow and Adams eventually find the ship embedded in the ocean floor, the struggle to free the gold safely becomes the prevalent story arc. Dawn adds in Hayama's fierce determination to rob Darrow as a side-quest that enhances the action and gunplay quite well.

Conrad Dawn had a real knack for nautical adventure and Chartered Love, despite the poor title, is a testament to his talent. The book's plot was reminiscent of another stellar 1970s adventure novel titled Pieces of the Game, authored by Lee Gifford and published the same year. If you are a fan of nautical adventure then Chartered Love is sure to please. Highly recommended! Get it HERE.

Hired Lover

Hired Lover was first published in 1959 under the pseudonym Fred Martin, but the real author was king of the sleaze-crime genre, Orrie Hitt (1916-1975), and its supposed to be one of his best novels. Thanks to Stark House Press, the short novel is back in print in a double paired with Summer Hotel (1958) and a fascinating introduction by paperback scholar, Jeff Vorzimmer.

Our narrator is a Chicago driving instructor named Mike Callahan who is giving a wealthy young woman named Kitty driving lessons. She’s super sexy and wastes no time seducing Mike. Kitty is married to a much older man. She claims he’s a sickly and cruel man nearly three-times her age. You see where this is going.

Girls like that in books like this are addictive and Mike becomes hooked on the sex with young Kitty. Opportunities abound when Kitty’s husband hires Mike to be her full-time chauffeur. This gives Mike access to Kitty but also access to her husband’s estate and proximity to the life of wealth and privilege he’s never enjoyed before.

Eventually, it occurs to Kitty and Mike that all of it could be theirs if Kitty’s husband was dead. No surprise to the reader who has enjoyed this plot dozens of times within the genre, but Hitt does a nice job managing the twists, turns and betrayals along the way.

If you enjoy femme fatale classics by James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice) or Gil Brewer (The Vengeful Virgin), you’ll love Hired Lover. This is Orrie Hitt at the top of his noir game. Recommended. Get it HERE.

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 103

Today's episode examines the intriguing police procedural sub-genre of crime-fiction. Eric presents an exciting feature on one of the genre's most iconic authors, Hillary Waugh. In addition, Eric reviews the first installment of the vintage detective series Neil Hockaday and discusses some new book aquisitions. The episode also includes an audible story by crime-noir writer Jimmy McKimmey. Stream below or download the episode directly HERE. 

Listen to "Episode 103: Hillary Waugh" on Spreaker.

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 102

The Paperback Warrior Podcast is back! On this episode, Eric explains the show's new format while also presenting features on pulp author and screenwriter William L. Chester and the history of vintage paperback publisher Handi Books. Tom checks in from the road after browsing the third best bookstore in America. In addition, Eric reviews the 1971 suspenseful mystery paperback Crawlspace by Herbert Lieberman and sorts through a stack of new arrivals. Stream HERE, watch on YouTube HERE, play below, or download the episode HERE

Listen to "Episode 102: We're Back!" on Spreaker.

Awake and Die

According to Mysteryfile.com, there isn't a lot of information about author Robert Ames. Apparently Ames was a pseudonym used by Charles Clifford, not to be confused with the Charles L. Clifford that authored While the Bells Ran. As Ames, Clifford authored three novels for Fawcett Gold Medal – The Devil Drives (1952), The Dangerous One (1954), and today's subject, Awake and Die (1955). The Stark House Press imprint Black Gat Books published Awake and Die in a new edition in 2023 with the original cover painting by Clark Hulings.

Fans of crime-fiction either really love the “narrative from the deathhouse” stories and novels or they tend to really hate them. I personally don't enjoy parking in the lunatic lot with killers and thieves, but I can make exceptions when the stories are phenomenal, like a good James Cain tale. Jim Thompson, no thanks. If you aren't familiar with this style of storytelling, they are traditionally first-person narration from someone that explains a murder was committed and then provides scintillating details to the reader on the events that led up to the occurrence (hint: the events are always wearing high-heels). Readers assume the writer is wearing orange and sitting under a small window that has a terrific view of the trains if not for those pesky vertical bars. 

In this novel, a guy named Will, a Korean War veteran, begins his narration with, “The day of the killing was one of the most beautiful I ever spent on the water. I didn't know murder was going to be done that night, and done by me.” Simple. Effective. Will is a killer. Then he explains all of the events leading up to his present situation pushing the pen from somewhere. 

Up until Will sees Claire Grace his life is a peaceful one. He has a small boat and spends his day doing hard, but enjoyable, labor raking clams from sea beds before returning to his own three-room house on the river. He's his own man, his own boss. However, an alcoholic woman named Mae moved into his house months ago and she just won't leave. Will doesn't drink so Mae lifts two bottles each night to make up for it. As he begins his account, he has booted Mae to the curb and changed the locks. But, from the water he looks up to see stunning Claire Grace and it all goes to Hell.

Claire is the unhappy wife of a wealthy entrepreneur. When she makes eye contact with Will it is love at first sight. The two go out, dance, and then Claire goes back to her marriage and Will goes back to his empty bed. But, when he returns he finds Mae has broken the window and sits in a drunken bliss awaiting Will's return. In a rage, Will throttles her, breaks her neck, then throws her in the river. From that point it is the “cover up all tracks and smoothly go back to business as usual.” But, it never works that well. 

Will's murder of Mae leads to more murder just to cover up the original murder. Before long he's in deeper than Mae's bloated corpse bouncing off the river bed. When he pulls a young girl named Chris into his death-drama the events spiral completely out of control. But, when Claire knocks on his door, everything seems right as rain. If Will can just escape the cumbersome murders then Claire will leave her husband and the two lovers can sail to a banana country and live a happy existence. But, will Claire be the next corpse?

Charles Clifford or Robert Ames or whoever wrote this should be commended. Lots of authors do the femme fatale dance well, including star performers like Day Keene, Gil Brewer, and Charles Williams. Clifford/Ames certainly keeps pace with them. This wildly entertaining narrative goes into some crazy places that involve the demented elements of crime-fiction – murder, rage, adultery, and jealousy. Just when I thought it was wrapped up the author spins new life into the story and takes it into a different direction.

The highlights, other than Will being non compos mentis, is the extraordinary investigation conducted by a diligent police officer named Roberts. He's the bad good guy...if that makes sense. But, what I really loved about the novel is that the author uses alcohol as the culprit. Each character and violent end involves alcohol. That is a fixture here that remains prevalent as the narrative spins its hypnotic web.

If you love a great crime-noir then look no further than Awake and Die. It's the proverbial top-notch page-turner you are searching for and you can obtain it HERE.

Disturbance on Berry Hill

Elizabeth Jane Phillips, better known as her pseudonym Elizabeth Fenwick, authored three standard detective novels in the 1940s. In the following decade, Fenwick changed her writing style to feature flawed and vulnerable characters placed into high levels of distress drenched in tight-knit suspense. Often, the setting is a confined space with very little wiggle room to escape the impending doom. 

Like Fenwick's A Friend of Mary Rose (1961), which traps the reader and characters in an attic to contend with a home-invasion plot, or The Make-Believe Man (1963), which confines the compact narrative into a different type of home-invasion suburbia, Disturbance on Berry Hill (1968) has a similar set-up. 

In Fenwick's taut narrative, which she had perfected by this point in her career, the thrilling mystery lies in a small cluster of upscale homes on Berry Hill, a sub-division that was carved out of a sprawling farm in rural Connecticut. These seven homes are mostly owned by affluent, middle-aged couples that fit the mid 20th century mold – husbands journey off to daytime employers and wives remain behind to keep the home fires well lit. But, on Berry Hill someone else is staying behind as well, stalking and menacing these prosperous homes and providing white-knuckle fright for the ladies. 

The novel begins with Maggie Leavis recounting a frightening incident that occurred while she was in the bathtub. From inside the porcelain safety, Maggie hears someone enter the home, walk upstairs, and then methodically stand outside of the couple's bathroom – knowing Maggie is inside. Before you think Michael Myers, Maggie explains that this intruder, who she thinks was a mysterious man, didn't come in the bathroom and instead simply knocked a picture off the dresser and then slowly left the home. The author introduces readers to Berry Hill in a really significant way. Maggie's testimony is bone-chilling. 

When Maggie visits her female neighbors the next day she hears similar stories. In one account, this mysterious man closed a garage door behind a woman and then stood outside as if he (or it!) was daring the woman to open the door. In another incident, a woman is grabbed from behind and squeezed. The attacker then simply runs off. There are a few similar things, like a birthday cake flipped upside down or seeing someone near the creek behind the neighborhood. 

The neighbors all meet one night to discuss the intruder/prowler and what needs to happen next. Should they call the police? Ignore the rather innocent pranks? After the meeting, their concerns are met with an appalling revelation – one of the female neighbors is found dead near the creek. When the police arrive they discover it was foul play. Whoever has been gently plaguing Berry Hill has now escalated their game into cold-blooded murder.

Disturbance on Berry Hill is the proverbial page-turner. Fenwick's approach to the book's first half sets readers on edge with these disturbing intrusions into the sanctity and lives of these well-to-do Connecticut residents. As their white-collar emotional fencing caves, the flaws and vulnerability begin to show. One elderly neighbor is contending with dependency while another couple is dealing with depression and inadequacy. There are also the obvious early dismissals of the complaints by most of the men, who are either too busy to deal with the intrusions or simply believe these are daytime fantasies created by bored housewives. 

Fenwick knows when to increase the pace, tension, and atmosphere for the book's second half. After the murder, fingers begin pointing, accusations are made, and there is a real unnerving, unraveling of the neighborly ties that bind. Someone in the neighborhood is, or knows, the murderer. Through Maggie's experience, the readers delve into the mystery and eventually discover the identity of the killer. 

While the ending left me slightly deflated, Disturbance on Berry Hill was an extremely enjoyable read. The characters, the setting, and the slow atmospheric march to the murder really highlighted the book's opening half. As the book sped to the finish, fans of police procedural crime-fiction will enjoy the investigation and interviews.

Overall, Fenwick continues to impress. If you are wanting to explore her work look no further than Stark House Press's amazing preservation. They continue to focus on Fenwick, and her contemporaries in Jean Potts, Ruth Sawtell Wallis, and Nedra Tyre to name a few (I'm pushing on them to reprint Amber Dean!). You can get Disturbance on Berry Hill as a twofer with her 1961 thriller Night Run HERE. 

The Other Woman

The Other Woman by Charles Burgess was a Beacon Books title from 1960 that has found new life as a reprint from Black Gat Books. It’s a femme fatale crime novel masquerading as a sleazy sex book. The identity and bio of the author remains a vexing mystery with no help from the internet.

The novel itself is pretty solid. Our narrator is Florida real estate agent Neil Cowan who has a buyer for 40 acres on the lake that would be perfect for a new housing development. The buyer is John Royal, a wealthy town patriarch married to Emmaline, his voluptuous and much-younger bride.

Of course, Neil is completely taken by Emmaline. Who wouldn’t be? She’s elegant, smart and sexy. She’s also got the vibe of a woman looking for trouble. Neil is happily married himself, but this is a 1960 sleaze-crime novel, so the rules are different.

It takes no time at all before Neil and Emmaline commence a hot and heavy affair and even less time before she’s suggesting to Neil that murdering her husband will allow them to be together with all his money.

A sizable percentage of books from this era all have the same setup, but The Other Woman takes an abrupt left turn and becomes an honest-to-goodness murder mystery with Neil at the helm of the whodunnit. There are twists and turns and frame-ups and red-herrings and everything you like from a vintage crime thriller.

Burgess was a solid writer and he ties up the plot with a logical and compelling solution. There are hundreds of books from this era about a wrongfully-accused man solving a crime to clear his own name, yet The Other Woman is as good as they come. It’s literary comfort food and an easy recommendation.

About the Author:

The identity of the author Charles Burgess remains a mystery. Here’s what we know:

Novels:

Backfire (Australia, Phantom, 1959)

The Other Woman (Beacon, 1960)

Short Fiction:

“I’d Die for You” (Manhunt, Oct 1958) 

True Crime: as by Charles L. Burgess:

"Never Kill a Cop!" (Complete Detective Cases, Jan 1947)

"Case of the Buck-Happy Brunette" (Revealing Detective Cases, Aug 1949)

"A Killer with Women" (Underworld Detective, Dec 1951)

"Laughing Stranger from Dalton, Georgia" (Official Detective Stories, Feb 1956)

"Fat Man Blues" (True Crime, May 1956)

Paperback Warrior engaged Florida’s most prestigious private investigative firm to locate the author and his heirs. While there were many solid leads, our gumshoe was unable to definitively solve the case. More on this story as it develops. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Shakedown for Murder

Ed Lacy, real name Leonard S. Zinberg, experienced success with his diverse 1957 private-eye novel, Room to Swing. The book introduced the first creditable African-American PI, New Yorker Touie Moore. For his achievement, Lacy was awarded the Edgar for Best Novel and heaps of respect and accolades from his contemporaries. The following year, Lacy was productive as ever with three new crime-fiction novels, Breathe No More, My Lady, Shakedown for Murder, and Be Careful How You Live (aka Dead End). Stark House Press published two of these novels, Breathe No More, My Lady and Shakedown for Murder as a twofer edition with an introduction by Cullen Gallagher. I chose to read Shakedown... first.

Lacy welcomes readers with a two-page death-dealing scene in which a Dr. Edward Barnes is murdered while making a house call to an apparent friend or longtime colleague. As Barnes collapses by the heavy Buick, the reader is bewildered on what led to this sudden fatal attack and the events that transpired previously. By providing this initial shock, Lacy braces readers for a rip-roar ride through a small town of suspects, agendas, love affairs, and an unlikely hero.

In the opening chapters, single fifty-something Matt Lund arrives for a one-week vacation in a New York coastal town called End Harbor. He's there to visit his adult son Dan, who is married to Bessie and they have a young son named Andy. Matt brings his fat cat with him as well, the only semblance that he has any local relationships other than the jailbirds he babysits as a cop working in a prison back in the city. In first-person perspective, Matt explains that he really would rather be at home snoozing his vacation away instead of being grandpa. But, he's a good sport about it and tries to inject some life and fun into his trip. But, things go off the rails when the local hick cop discovers the corpse of Dr. Barnes.

Lund is a humorous likable guy that displays an ineptitude for modern efficiencies and behavior while still maintaining a veneer of an experienced lawman. On a supermarket run, Lund impresses his grandson by pointing out to the local cop that Barnes didn't accidentally die. He cites specific evidence on the Buick that suggests foul play. The cop doesn't appreciate Lund, who in reality has never worked any investigation beyond petty theft, and tells him to butt out. When Bessie's good friend, a wacky old guy that drives a taxi with reckless abandonment, is jailed for the Barnes murder, Lund is forced into the investigation. 

Lacy always has a thing or two to say about racism in his books and often provides subtext surrounding social issues of the time. Lund's pairing with a Native American woman introduces the town's history of bigotry and hatred towards her ethnicity. The author also adds some insight on getting older and walking the balance beam of working and staying active to retiring and accepting the advancement of years. 

As a crime-fiction novel, Lacy adds in the traditional genre tropes – gumshoe investigation, interviews, weeding out suspects, and discovering possible motives for the murder. If you enjoy mid 20th century crime-fiction, few will write it better than Ed Lacy. Get Shakedown for Murder HERE

The Evil Wish

Jean Potts, who lived most of her life in New York City, began her writing career by contributing short stories to the glossy magazines of the early to mid-20th century. Her first full-length novel, Someone to Remember, was published in 1943. She would go on to write 15 original novels, most of which have been published in twofer collections by Stark House Press. I've read a few and wanted to continue my pursuit of her work with The Evil Wish. It was originally published in hardcover by Scribner in 1962 and then later as a paperback by Ace. It now exists an affordable reprint by Stark House. 

In my prior Potts experiences I sampled traditional whodunits, complete with suspects and red herrings, in the 1966 novel The Footsteps on the Stairs and the author's 1972 novel The Troublemaker. However, The Evil Wish is a very different type of novel, one that emphasizes the concept of murder without actually doing the ghastly deed. In a unique presentation, The Evil Wish becomes a white-knuckle, unsettling pot-boiler that doesn't need an invitation to turn the pages. It's a mesmerizing, devilish descent into an unyielding conundrum – to kill or not to kill. That's the question. And it burns like a wildfire. 

In a spacious New England house, thirty-something sisters Marcia and Lucy avoid life and discomfort while living with their well-to-do father, a successful doctor with a practice in the home. The first two floors are the trio's domicile and the top floors are rented to tenants. Marcia is an alcoholic involved in an affair with a married man. Lucy has never committed to love and behaves like a frightened recluse. Both have serious social issues. 

The two have shared a habit since childhood of listening through the basement vent as their father talks to patients and a revolving door of pretty nurses. One night they hear the unthinkable. Old Daddy is marrying the hot young nurse that is clearly in it for the money. If that isn't off-putting enough, Daddy's language suggests that his grown adult-children need to get a life. But, Potts carefully, and sadistically, places the reader into the minds of these two attention-starved sisters. The reader sometimes isn't aware of what is real and what is really being imagined by the delusional duo. 

As the narrative unfolds, a plan of attack develops. What if Marcia and Lucy conspire to not only knock off “pretty young thing” but also Daddy himself? They could waddle in misery and comfortable discomfort in the confines of their own home without Daddy's condemnation. However, the plan backfires when it never comes to fruition. An unexpected death is wrenched into these smooth turning wheels that deteriorates and destroys the murder plan. This is where Potts absolutely shines. By fixating on a murder that can't physically happen, the sisters turn on each other in frustration. The finale is a coffee date from Hell. 

While I haven't read them all I can't foresee another Potts novel surpassing The Evil Wish. It is such an engrossing, all-consuming psychological story that twists and turns into a wretched lifeless state. While it may seem cold and heartless, Potts spruces up the storyline with a tongue-in-cheek look at death and the weird fascination we all have on the old business of murder. The Evil Wish is everything you could possibly wish for in a vintage crime-noir. Recommended! 

Buy a copy of this book HERE

Stark House Anthology Vol. 01

Stark House Press put together four fantastic anthologies of magazine stories from Manhunt, and to celebrate the publisher’s 25th Anniversary, they are releasing another short fiction anthology from a wider variety of 20th Century crime fiction sources. As such, it should come as no surprise that The Stark House Anthology is a masterpiece.

Editors Rick Ollerman and Gregory Shepard canvassed digests including Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, Manhunt and many obscure publications to curate this collection that appears to be genetically-engineered to appeal to Paperback Warrior readers.

The anthology boasts 30 stories from crime fiction royalty including Harry Whittington, Fletcher Flora, Fredric Brown, Gil Brewer, and Peter Rabe. They also included a never-published short novel called “So Curse the Day” by Jada M. Davis, author of the 1952 paperback One For Hell.

At 458 pages, you’re bound to find something to enjoy here. Reviewing a short story anthology is a fool’s errand, but here are some quick blurbs of stories I read on my first pass-through.

“The Tormented” by James McKimmey

The story originally appeared in the August 1967 issue of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine. The setup is simple. Vince Ecker is a redneck hunter. David Farrel is an over-educated clerical worker. Somehow, they go hunting together on land owned by a wealthy investment tycoon, and Ecker learns where the tycoon stashes his cash. Sounds like it’s time for a heist. As expected, this is a very well-orchestrated crime story consistent with McKimmey’s longer works.

“Nothing in My Way” by Orrie Hitt

Orrie Hitt was the best sleaze-fiction author of his era because his best works were often sexy crime novels incognito. This short story was from Smashing Detective Stories July 1955 issue. The story is about a man who fakes his death for the insurance money and then surgically changes his face so no one will recognize he’s still alive. But in order to enjoy the life insurance money, he needs to get it from his no-good, slutty widow. This is a fantastic story with a great twist ending. Make this one a priority.

“Secretaries Make Such Nice Wives” by A.S. Fleischman

This is probably the shortest story in the book. Taken from the Toronto Star Weekly in 1946, it’s a fun little tale about a man and his wife who are taken hostage and forced to drive the bad guy across the border from Tijuana to San Diego. The driver needs to alert the border police without tipping off the carjacker. The story is just setting up a decent punchline at the end. It’s definitely worth the five minutes of your time it will take you to read it.

“The Geek Girl” by Day Keene

This delightful tale of carny-noir by Day Keene was originally published in Australia’s ADAM magazine in 1953, so we are lucky to find it resurrected here. Opening day of the Carnival passing through Langley is here, and our narrator Morgan (“the talker”) walks the reader through the advance work that makes the road show possible. In town, he meets a beautiful mute girl in trouble with the law and hires her to be a trumped-up geek exhibit on the midway. The story of the geek girl is not a crime story as much as it’s a dramatic and compelling carnival vs. corrupt townie story. But don’t skip this one. It’s a lost classic.

Final Assessment

The editors clearly put a ton of work into The Stark House Anthology and it shows. For 25 years, the publisher has been unearthing and reprinting the finest paperback novels of the 20th century. I hope they continue to compile short fiction from the era because this collection is a total gem. Highest recommendation. 

Buy a copy of the book HERE

Bait

According to his bio, William E. Vance (1911-1986) taught creative writing and worked for the Federal Aviation Administration in Utah. The author's short stories first appeared in the early 1950s in magazines like Argosy and Esquire. He turned to paperback originals, penning over 40 novels including western and crime-fiction. Using the pseudonym George Cassidy, he authored more racy romance novels including The Flesh Market, Wanton Bride, Assignment: Seduction, and Sin Circus. Stark House Press chose his 1962 novel Bait to reprint as Black Gat Books #59.

Melody Frane is 17 years old and living in a one-room shack on an Arizona migratory farm. Daily, she performs hard labor and arrives home to hear the rhythmical sounds of a squeaky mattress holding her drunk mother and a hoodlum. Melody wants out, and she has the knock 'em dead good looks to rise above her sorrowful lifestyle. Her meal ticket might be Harry Ransome. 

Harry is the town's wealthy entrepreneur, holding the keys to the city through real estate, investments, and solid business savvy. However, most of his success comes from swindling young women like Melody as special concessions to close the big deal. When Harry propositions Melody for the big plays, she hesitantly accepts. Soon, she's wining and dining in Los Angeles while attending a performing arts school that hopes to firm up her mind and soul to deliver the goods. She's forced into uncompromising situations with Harry and his business associates while pining for the real love of her life, a hard-working pilot that works for Harry.

Bait was originally published by Beacon, a sleaze publisher that mostly offered very tepid sex scenes (what we would consider PG-13 today) peppered through a gripping human conflict story. Author Charles Boeckman wrote some of the best Beacon paperbacks as Alex Carter, and Bait sort of falls into the same overall theme. Vance presents the glitz and glamour of the high-dollar white-collar, but underlines it with a blue-collar “fish out of water” story of a small-town girl pressured into unfamiliarity. As a breezy read, take the Bait and enjoy. Recommended. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Come Easy - Go Easy

For a guy with over 90 novels to his name, British author of American thrillers James Hadley Chase (real name: Rene Raymond, 1906-1985) had a remarkably-good batting average. As such, his 1960 femme-fatale heist noir novel, Come Easy - Go Easy, seemed like a good choice for an effortless and quality read.

Our narrator is Chet, a locksmith specializing in safes. One night he’s dispatched to a service call at the home of a rich jackass who lost his key. Chet pops the lock and sees a half-million bucks in cash just sitting in the safe. That’s the kind of thing that gets a guy thinking…

Chet mentions it to his co-worker Roy, and the guys start scheming. Anyone who reads a lot of heist novels will see that their plan is harebrained and riddled with pitfalls. And, of course, the whole thing goes sideways in the most delightful way possible. I won’t spoil it for you here, but these guys find themselves in a fabulous mess.

The book becomes a man-on-the-run novel and then the author channels Gil Brewer or Harry Whittington for the heart of the novel as Chet hides from the law in a small town among a benevolent boss with sexy young wife driving Chet to more bad decisions.

It’s a heist novel - two, in fact. It’s a prison break novel. It’s a femme fatale novel. It’s a man on the run novel. It’s everything that’s good about noir paperbacks from the 1950s and 1960s. It also the best novel by Chase - by far - that I’ve ever read. If you like the best work of Gil Brewer and Harry Whittington , this is up there with it. Don’t skip this one. I’m dead serious.

Come Easy - Go Easy has been reprinted a bazillion times over the past 60+ years, but you should buy the Stark House version which also includes his novel In A Vain Shadow and an intro by Rick Ollerman. Buy that version HERE.

The Time of Terror

The kidnapping-heist crime novel The Time of Terror by Lionel White (1905-1985) was first published as a hardcover in 1960 and later abridged to fit the page count as an Ace Double paperback in 1961. The original text of the novel has been reprinted by Stark House Press and paired with 1958’s Too Young to Die.

Long Island, New York couple Christian and Elizabeth (“Call me, Bet!”) are living the suburban American dream. Christian has a good job with an electronics business he helped found, and Bet spends her days raising her two little kids with the help of a live-in nanny and housekeeper.

We also meet 38 year-old Frank Mace, a downtrodden guy in a downscale New York suburb. Frank is a laid-off factory worker whose family has left him. Frank feels that the only answer to turning his life around is an immediate influx of cash. As such, Frank decides to rob a supermarket without formulating much of a coherent plan.

Upon arrival at the grocery store, Frank encounters an unattended little kid - Bet’s kid - and snatches the boy up concocting a kidnapping-for-ransom scheme on the fly. And away we go with a wild paperback crime yarn.

In the opening chapters of The Time of Terror, the author adopts the conversational narration style employed in Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels where the third-person omniscient narrator has personality and provides commentary - even acknowledging that there is a reader to whom he’s speaking. It makes for a fun read, and White has the chops to do it well.

The perspective shifts between the police, the local newspaper, the FBI, the victim family, and our kidnapper are quick and well-executed. The plot developments are of the forehead-slapping, one-damn-thing-after-another variety and you’ll have a hard time looking away from this slow-motion noir trainwreck of a crime story.

Overall, it was a pretty great book. The first half a stronger than the second half, but White never disappoints. If you enjoy heists-gone-wrong paperbacks, you can safely add this one to your reading list.

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Little Sister

Robert Martin (1908-1976) wrote a fair amount of crime and mystery paperbacks under his own name as well as the pseudonym Lee Roberts. Little Sister was a 1952 stand-alone Fawcett Gold Medal hardboiled private-eye paperback that has been reborn as a Black Gat reprint, including an insightful introduction by Bill Pronzini.

Our narrator is Private Detective Andrew Brice, and he is summoned to a new client meeting at a large estate. His client is a wealthy, attractive woman named Miss Vivian Prosper who has just gone through a financially-advantageous divorce. Vivian shares the lakefront mansion with her little sister, Linda — and since the novel is called Little Sister, you probably saw that coming.

Little Sister Linda is a 17 year-old whiskey-swilling hellion, and she stands to inherit a pile of money from a trust fund soon when she reaches 18. Linda intends to marry a 30 year-old gas station attendant, and Big Sister Vivian wants PI Brice to break up the romance because the loser boyfriend is clearly just trying to get his claws on the trust fund cash.

All of this is conveyed in the Chapter One meeting between Brice and Vivian. The reader sees where this is going, and then Little Sister Linda arrives home in her convertible, drunk-as-a-skunk with a dead body in the trunk. And THAT’S how you start a private eye paperback.

As a licensed professional, Brice is duty bound to report the corpse in the trunk to the police, but sexy Vivian has other ideas. Could the prospect of getting laid with the seductive divorcee possibly convince our PI to dispose of the body with no police involvement? That’s the kind of thing that could turn a hardboiled private eye mystery into a femme fatale crime noir paperback.

You’ll need to read the book to find out how Brice handles this and other dilemmas he confronts throughout this lean paperback. The plot eventually settles into a pretty standard PI mystery with Brice interviewing one witness after another until the situation becomes both more clear and more messy as red herrings arise. It’s all well-written with a sexy undercurrent thanks to the seductive sisters at the eye of the storm and the fact that every female interviewee throws themselves at Brice.

The climactic conclusion is a scene where the villain, now revealed, explains the motivation and execution of the murder in painstaking detail while holding a gun on Brice. It’s an overused trope in mystery fiction, but well-executed in this case.

And that’s the thing with Little Sister. This paperback breaks zero new ground for a private eye mystery of the 1950s. However, if you’re in the mood for a completely traditional and readable genre paperback, you could do a lot worse. It’s about as good as a better-than-average Mike Shayne novel. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Snake-Bite and Other Mystery Tales of the Sahara

Robert Smythe Hichens (1864-1959) was a journalist, music critic, playwright, lyricist and novelist. He saw his first novel published in 1886 when he was just 17 years of age. His most popular works include An Imaginative Man (1895), Flames (1897), and The Slave (1899). Many of his novels were adapted into film or plays, including The Paradine Case, which was directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1947. Stark House Press has published a collection of the author's short-stories that include mystery and intrigue set in North Africa. The book is called Snake-Bite and Other Mystery Tales of the Sahara and features an introduction by literary critic S.T. Joshi.

In the story “Desert Air”, an astute worldly traveler recounts his trip to Beni-Kouidar, a windswept city in the Sahara Desert. It is here that the narrator and his companion stumble upon a young exotic dancer that has ties to a powerful Sheik. After being warned to stay away from the young woman, and to leave town, the two overstay their welcome and misfortune falls on the companion. 

“The Desert Drum” is a first-person account of a traveler riding through the tiny hovels called Sidi-Massarli in the Sahara. His reason for explaining his travels is the examination of the “desert drum”, a local superstition that these mysterious drum sounds beckon death. In town, the narrator finds a lawman who has a prisoner tied to his saddle. The lawman explains that the prisoner murdered someone, served prison time, and is now being returned to his hometown to go free. Later that night, the trio of men hear the ominous sounds of the “desert drum”, a sign that one of these men will surely be murdered.

In Joshi's introduction, he points out that Hichens was fascinated by the “eternal feminine”, highlighting the voided space both physically and emotionally between man and woman. The stories in this collection share a location setting – the Sahara Desert – but also a general theme of man lusting for woman. Often, these are performers that have a resound effect on the travelers and businessmen they entertain. In “The Charmer of Snakes”, the stage actress Claire enters the life of Renfrew, creating a life disruption. The same can be said for “The Desert Drum”, where the young prisoner commits murder just to return to prison to see the dancer he's smitten with. 

These stories are entertaining, and showcase Hichens storytelling talents as both a mystery and adventure writer. His writing borders on the cusp of dark fiction, like several of his contemporaries like Arthur Machen and Clark Ashton Smith. If you are new to Robert Hichens, this collection may be a great place to discover his work. Stark House Press have also released more Hichens collections, including The Black Spaniel & Other Strange Stories and How Love Came to Professor Guildea and Other Uncanny Tales. 

Buy a copy of the book HERE.

A Woman Possessed

A Woman Possessed was a 1961 paperback by Harry Whittington, writing as Whit Harrison. The book is a crime noir paperback packaged as a sleaze novel for the original Beacon Books release. Fortunately, it’s been reprinted as a double by Stark House along with 1952’s Prime Sucker. The new edition includes an insightful introduction by pop culture scholar Cullen Gallagher.

As with the best of Whittington’s novels, he wastes no time getting into the plot. Convicted murderer Dan Ferrel is an inmate on a prison road gang swinging a grass sling to cut down the weeds along the steamy highway. Nobody else knows that Dan is expecting company. Namely, a woman named May who should be roaring up any minute in a blue car to facilitate his escape from the shotgun-toting guards.

Of course, the escape happens and Dan is on the run. May is smitten for Dan, but it’s clear that Dan is just using his psychological hold over May to manipulate her into facilitating his getaway. Dan has another woman on his mind - an old flame with whom Dan has a score to settle.

The second plot thread involves Dan’s brother, Paul. He’s the good kid of the family who is going to attend medical school and make something of himself. Paul just started dating a night club singer — always a disreputable profession in these books — and the songbird is pressuring Paul to join her in a heist, so they can be together with a little cash for a change.

The prison guard overseeing the road gang is Virgil Hawkins, and he’s a gun-crazy psychopath just looking for a reason to kill an inmate. When Dan escapes the road gang, Virgil takes it as a personal affront and takes vacation time to hunt Dan himself. This was a great storyline that I wish the author had further developed.

This is top-tier Whittington: Violent, exciting and compelling. The Beacon Books imprint also means sex scenes a few notches more graphic than the usual 1961 fare. There’s really nothing not to like about this one, and thanks to Stark House, you can read it without spending an arm and a leg. Recommended. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

The Sleeping City

“The Sleeping City” was a novella that originally appeared in the Fall, 1952 issue of Thrilling Detective. It was authored by Mary Hauenstein using the pseudonym of Marty Holland. I enjoyed and reviewed Holland's suspenseful potboiler novel The Glass Heart, and was curious to see what she could do with a hard-hitting heist plot. Both The Glass Heart and The Sleeping City are available as a twofer from Stark House Press, so it made for easy accessibility.

Wade works as a plainclothes cop and lives with his fiancé Betty (separate bedrooms) in her brother's house. He's anxious to climb the career ladder, get hitched, and ultimately find a place of his own. His big break comes when the Gangster Squad's Captain Roberts offers up a sole undercover assignment. Wade is to assume the role of a Chicago hood named Cox, who is expected by a local corrupt businessman named Thompson. The theory is that Thompson is assembling a heist crew to knock off a bank.

The central portion of Holland's novella focuses on Wade easing into his role as a notorious gunman. The real Cox was nabbed at the airport by the cops, and Thompson only knows of Cox through word of mouth and referrals. So, it's an easy infiltration for Wade, as long as he can act and play the part. The idea is that Thompson, Wade, and a couple of smooth thugs are going to rob an armored truck when it picks up a large bankroll. Heist-fiction is always about assembling, planning, and executing, and Holland's approach is no different. But, there's a wrench in the gears with a beautiful woman named Madge, who is part of Thompson's crew. 

Wade falls for Madge, despite being engaged to Betty, and begins to fantasize about the two of them actually going through with the robbery and making a clean break into the High Sierras to live a life of wealthy anonymity. It's more than a romantic escape, as Wade begins to question his own meager existence and potential future suburbanite lifestyle with Betty. Holland introduces a stark balance with Wade and Madge's relationship compared to a bird with broken wings that Wade and Betty are nurturing back to health. It's really quite clever. Also, in a flashback scene, readers discover that Wade saved Captain Roberts' life during WW2, so there's a devout allegiance between the two. 

“The Sleeping City” was a superb story that included a rewarding, furious finale. Holland pulls no punches and delivered some of the best descriptions of gunplay even when compared to her male contemporaries of the time. Her vivid details like “shotgun shooting ejected shells over the shoulder” and “the .38's like little swarms of bees buzzing” added so much to these combat scenes. In terms of violence, her writing of the inevitable gunfight was similar to a much later writer, Marc Olden, who had a real knack for it. 

As a bonus in Stark House Press's reprint of The Glass Heart novel, “The Sleeping City” is a mandatory read. It contains everything we all love about heist and crime-fiction. Holland was a talented writer that is unfairly overlooked. Thankfully, Stark House Press is giving her career much love and respect. Recommended. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

The Glass Heart

Marty Holland was born Mary Hauenstein in 1919. She began her writing career by authoring short stories for the pulps. Her debut full-length novel was Fallen Angel, published in 1945 by E.P. Dutton and Company. The book was sold to 20th Century Fox and adapted into a film of the same name by Otto Preminger. Her second novel, and the subject of this review, is The Glass Heart, originally published in 1946 by Julian Messner, Inc. The novel, which was adapted into an unfilmed screenplay by James M. Cain, has been reprinted by Stark House Press as a two-in-one alongside the author's novella The Sleeping City, which was originally printed in the Fall, 1952 issue of Thrilling Detective.

The Glass Heart, also published as Her Private Passions, begins with protagonist Curt Blair stealing an expensive topcoat from a patron in a ritzy hash joint in Beverly Hills. Blair, a professional deadbeat, beats out the pursuit of the police by ducking into the house of Virginia Block, a middle-aged woman who just happened to be expecting her new gardener to arrive from an employment agency. Blair has enough streetwise moxy to pass for the job and accepts a measly $20 per week salary to cater to Block. But, the deal comes with free room and board and a convenient way to escape the police.

Blair discovers that Block is a miserable, wealthy bitch that is extremely tight with her money. She rarely pays any of the laborers that work at her house or at her sprawling walnut ranch. She possesses an uncanny knack for ripping people off, but still maintains that she is somehow helping everyone around her (like an ex-wife I know). Blair catches on quick, and is about to hit the road, when another roommate moves in – an attractive long-legged female that enjoys Blair's...company. The two go at it hot and heavy, but then another woman moves in and Blair becomes fascinated with her and her tragic history. 

This was a really entertaining novel and showcased Holland's extraordinary ability to write with a male mindset. Blair behaves like any red-blooded American deadbeat, but the level of detail – mannerisms, thought patterns, physical descriptions – would have been challenging for any other female writer. There's even a clever sort of reversal when Blair says (something to the effect) that he can think like a woman. The inevitable countdown for these four wily characters to blow is a potboiler similar to James M. Cain, which is probably what drew him to the story. If you love the high-tension, stressed love, hushed murder aspects of mid 20th century crime-noir novels, then The Glass Heart should surely be your next read. Highly recommended! 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Somebody's Done For

Philadelphia crime-noir author David Goodis died on January 7, 1967 at age 49 from brain trauma after being beaten in a robbery. That same year, his final novel, Somebody’s Done For, was posthumously published, but failed to make much of a splash at the time. Thank heavens, Stark House Noir Classics have resurrected the novel as a trade paperback and Kindle ebook.

The protagonist is Calvin Jander, and as the novel opens, he is far from land in Delaware Bay treading water to save his own life following the unfortunate sinking of his rowboat during a solo fishing trip. Let me tell you, that first chapter grabs the reader right by the balls and gets your attention. The panic and fear associated with the certainty that the remainder of your life can be counted in minutes is palpable in Goodis’ prose.

The means by which Jander makes it to the beach on the New Jersey side is pretty amazing, so I won’t spoil it here. He is helped ashore by a beautiful woman named Vera who leads him to an abandoned jungle shack and warns him not to ask too many questions if he wants to live. This was undeveloped land back in 1967, so it’s the perfect place for wanted criminals to hide out far from civilization. Vera is laying low with a small but dangerous group who are less than thrilled about the intrusion of Jander in their hideout.

Jander could slip away easily enough, but we learn that he’s an office drone who always dreamt of being a hero. Vera is in a rough spot with these toughs, and Calvin owes her for saving his life. Maybe it’s hero time? Goodis does a nice job contrasting the aspirational heroism and rationality of Jander with the dangerous powderkeg of emotional irrationality displayed by the crew in the hideout.

Goodis slow-plays the explanation of why this group of dysfunctional, bickering psychopaths is hiding in the woods. When he finally explains their back-story, it’s predictably great.

Most of Goodis’ best work comes from his exploration of skid row bums, but this one follows a white collar professional thrust into a seedy underbelly of crime and dysfunction. It’s an oddly-paced novel that ventures into some pretty dark places. Ultimately, Somebody’s Done For is a satisfying novel that underscores the fact that Goodis was a unique talent taken from the world too soon. 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.

Gang Rumble

By 1955, author Edward S. Aarons had mostly switched his writing expertise to espionage thrillers starring his secret-agent star Sam Durell. Before that, the author had crafted really good crime-fiction that often had the pseudonym Edward Ronns attached to it. In 1958, three years after finding literary success with his Assignment series, Aarons returned to the world of crime-fiction to author a potboiler called Gang Rumble. It was published by Avon and now exists as a Black Gat reprint by Stark House Press.

The narrative takes place over the course of one hot summer night in Philadelphia. Young Johnny Broom is a reckless, defiant hood that leads a small-time lot of losers called the Lancers. Broom's gang is set to rumble with a rival faction called the Violets in a section of abandoned row-houses deemed The Jungle. But, Broom's scheduled rumble is just a distraction for the cops. This hoodlum has a much larger agenda taking place.

With the cops dedicating their labor to the widely circulated rumble, Broom and two other guys are going to rob a local warehouse for a mid-level crime-boss. It's an audition for Broom to move up a few rungs on the criminal ladder. But, the book's most enduring element is that Broom's older brother Pete – a real nice good guy – works in the warehouse and has been coaching Broom to turn a corner and right his life on the straight and narrow. Will Broom kill Pete in the holdup?

This is a really unusual novel for Aarons and I've read enough of his crime-fiction to recognize some striking patterns here. Typically, Aarons doesn't write many crime-noir novels set in urban locations. His usual locale is the New England shoreline towns or the occasional lakeside cottages that permeate crime-noir paperbacks. Further, his crime novels are mostly void of any sexual depravity or heinous violence. 

In Gang Rumble, a male character is mentioned as pleasing himself, which leads to an affair with a housemaid. There is also an attempted rape scene, which is a little more detailed than what Aarons normally presents to readers. One of the characters recalls killing fish by emptying the tank and watching them slowly perish. These are all very unusual aspects to Aarons writing. It reads more like something Ovid Demaris would write – perverted criminals engaging in ultra-violent ways. Or, at the very least a Jim Thompson-styled romp. 

Whether Aarons was influenced by other writers (or assisted?), Gang Rumble is an enjoyable action-packed novel with plenty of intensity, riveting suspense, and an unpredictable formula. It has all of the popular crime-fiction tropes – kidnap, hostage, heist, police procedural – including unruly youngsters doing dastardly things. There's some social preaching here and there, mostly a repetitive pulpit soapbox on mankind's spiral into lawless savagery, which is eerily prophetic as the years roll on. While the author's literary estate is mostly locked tight, I'm glad this one slipped through and was able to be reprinted by Black Gat/Stark House Press. Highly recommended! 

Buy a copy of this book HERE.