Blonde on the Rocks (Carter Brown, 1963)

Let's stay on the rocks for another review, moving from the murder to a blonde. And yes, it's Carter Brown, so we can expect a new dosage of infantile and cryptic humour. Luckily, this one is from his Rick Holman series and not from the farcical and, in my opinion, much inferior Al Wheeler or Danny Boyd series.

The setup was quite original, and I liked it a lot. It opens with a famous actress hiring our troubleshooter to find out who had killed her! Obviously, not literally (even Carter Brown is now whacky enough for something like that), but killing in Hollywood can also mean blacklisting, which is precisely what happened to unfortunate Della. She hires Holman to discover who and why "put her on the ice".

Rick Holman discovers all that by the end of the next chapter. We are still only at page 30.

Holman keeps digging because there are some shady circumstances surrounding the incidental (yeah, right!) demise of Della's lover in a car accident. But he's pretty inefficient and will only be able to muster a grand total of three suspects by the time the book finishes. One of them turns out to be insane and gets incarcerated in an asylum, so the prospect of some big final roundup looks less and less likely. You don't need to take my word for it; such an idea sounds "childish and stupid" even to our main guy...

Fortunately for him, there will be no mandatory suspects roundup in this one as the murderer storms into Rick's house and tries to settle everything with a bit of a gunfight. Cool! And there's even a nice twist with body-swapping that I didn't see coming. Even cooler!

That covers the beginning and the end, but what happens in the middle? In one word: women! There are pages and pages of superlatives about the number of beauties that Holman encounters. The whole thing is so idiotic and over the top that it actually becomes funny to read. Check out the "dames" section below, and you'll see what I mean. 

Peasant-rich curves? Delicate ankles? With all due respect, Mr Brown,... but come on!?!!

3/5

Facts:

Hero:

You've gotten to be a real big man in your own line, right? These days anybody in the whole goddamned business has got troubles, what do they do? Right away they send for Rick Holman!

The bad guy(s):

Erik Stanger strode into the office, looking like something Wagner composed on an off day.

Dames: 

I liked them all! Witty and delightfully amoral.

Let's start with Della August, the titular blonde and one of the three top actresses in Hollywood. In the opening scene, our hero is struck by "the impact of the swelling curve of her jutting breasts and the long line of her lovely legs."

Not to mention that "her negligee is merely a silken sheath that hides her peasant-rich curves from his always vulgar gaze."

Then there's the bad guy's wife, Mrs Monica King:

It was like nature had made a big joke when it made her - by giving her about the most sexually appealing body of any woman I had ever seen in my whole life.

The brief black bikini only emphasised the magnetic nudity of that glorious abundance of flowing curves and spheres. Her breasts flowed outward with the majesty of a tidal river, until they culminated in a deeep fulfilment that made your whole body ache with desire at first glance. Her waist was a fragile, incredibly small bridge that merged into the swelling curves of her hips, which looked like they had been machine-turned, with a tolerance close to a ten-thousandth of an inch, into erotic perfection. Her legs were equal parts perfect, with rounded thighs, slender calves, and delicate ankles.

My favourite one would definitely be Eugenie St. Clair:

A tall, lithe brunette. Large, luminous dark eyes. High, exquisitely molded cheekbones. Both lips full and invitingly soft. A beautiful face, an intelligent face.

I figured that predatory was the word I wanted, maybe.

It has to be said that she has absolutely no role in this book, but I didn't really mind. How could I, as long as she came up with crazy stuff like this:

"Tell me more, Mr. Holman?" she whispered huskily. "Do you find my face beautiful? Is that why your vocal cords were paralyzed all that time? Or perhaps the deep sorrow that overshadows my life shows in my face - to a kindly man of the world gifted with acute perception, such as yourself?"

Location:

Tinseltown

Body count:

2

The object of desire:

"Why would they do this to you?" I asked.

She shrugged helplessly. "I don't know why, that's what I want you to find out, Rick. They started out to kill me, and in six months they've almost done it. I feel like a ghost already, with no work, no offers even, no nothing!

Blackouts:

We have one, and it's a bit unconventional. Holman is in a regular fistfight, but when he receives a punch in the solar plexus, he plunges into "a soaring whirlpool of blinding colors, alternating with Stygian darkness".

Luckily, we don't need to wait long for the explanation:

"Ah! You are back with us now? It hurt, but it was even worse in your mind, yes? That is because I was very scientific when I hit you. No permanent damage, but a temporary and partial paralysis of the diaphragm."

Title:

Della is blonde and has been "put on ice (rocks?) with all the studios". 

Edition:

Signet G2328, First Printing, July 1963

Cover:

Beautiful and sexy, by McGinnis. I'm adding the second edition's cover as it is equally great. Looks like they both came from the same photoshoot.

Cool lines:

"Oh, of course!" She giggled again. "I am stupid, aren't I?"
"Yes," I said simply.

I'd rather drop into the nearest cemetery and read the headstones than talk over old times with you.

I'll bet the only shotgun she's ever seen in her life was at her first wedding!

None but the Lethal Heart (Carter Brown, 1959)

With such a badass cover, this post was scheduled to be published on International Women's Day. I'm not writing this on March 8th, so you can probably guess where this review is heading.

Mavis Seidlitz is just not a heroine appropriate for celebrating strong and independent women. She's supposed to be an equal partner in the Rio Investigations detective agency, but this "partnership" is a bit odd. You see, It is entirely normal for her partner, Johnny Rio to throw an appointment book at her for being late, orders her around to bring him drinks (needless to say without "please" and/or "thank you"), and - worse of all - solves the case for her because she is too incompetent and dumb enough to drown in the rain.

Annoying and sometimes pretty nasty. Towards the end, there's a scene in which Johnny shoots (pretty much in cold blood) a suspect, and this is the exchange that follows between our duo of partners:

"Tell me something, Johnny" I said. "When you shot at Marian Stern, did you mean to kill her?

He thought about it for a moment. "I don't think so, Mavis," he said finally. "I wanted to make sure I stopped her shooting Rafael - I think there's a difference somewhere. Why?"

"Just for future reference," I said. "Otherwise I wouldn't feel safe when you got mad at me."

Partnership? Looks more like some kind of abusive and dysfunctional relationship to me.

I wanted to like this and had hoped that Mr Brown would have toned down his male chauvinistic crap, at least when his hero is a female. But instead of satirizing the stereotypes, he uses them for his leading character (non) development. Too bad. I couldn't really say I was shocked; I was more disappointed.

Other than that, the novel is surprisingly O.K. It does take several chapters to get into its goofy sense of humour, but then it is genuinely funny. Especially the first half, in which Mavis and Rafael run around like Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, trying to dispose of the corpse with every attempt more silly than the previous one. 

This gag becomes too repetitive and eventually loses its effect. However, there are still other things to enjoy. The supporting cast is pretty colourful, and I liked the dictator's spoiled son Arturo a.k.a. "The Fabulous" and beatnik Terry with his incomprehensible ramblings. Dig this jive:

"It was a kick", he said simply. "What else is there, doll? Don't you want me to have any fun? You a square or something - don't you dig this jazz?"

So yeah, it's more or less a standard Carter Brown quick read. It is a product of its time that publishers these days wouldn't give a second thought. I have two more Mavis Seidlitz books, but I don't think I'll bother chasing the others in the series. And for the next 8th of March, I'd instead do a post with Dark Angel or Baroness. Until then, happy International Women's Day to all you ladies out there. You rule the world!

3/5

Facts:

Hero:

But then I remembered I was Mavis Seidlitz, a full partner in Rio Investigations and I could handle a situation on my own. Anyway was I a girl or a gopher? Did I have red blood in my veins or perfume? So I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders determinedly and wouldn't you know I'd bust a bra strap at the same time!

Dames: 

Mavis Seidlitz, the torrid blonde private eye.

Location:

L.A.

Body count:

4

Blackouts:

Mavis faints when she discovers corpse #2. Of course, she does since she's a woman, right?

References:

He pressed the doorbell and inside the house chimes played something that sounded like it was from My Fair Lady. I figured it wasn't really, because they have something called copyright, don't they, which means it's only right to copy if you pay for it, and I figured Milroyd wasn't the guy to pay for anything if he could avoid it.

Title:

Have no idea what the expression "None but the Lethal Heart" means. I googled it and got back several links related to heart diseases. 

Edition:

Signet #1694, First printing, August 1959

Cover:

Outrageously funny and definitely in my top 10. She didn't even bother to take off the high-heeled shoes!?! Plus, check out the defiant look she's giving us - I don't think this gal has any guilty conscience, and I'd bet she'll sleep like a baby tonight!

And it's actually pretty accurate as our heroine indeed does dig a hole:

I had a shallow hole ready in no time, being a healthy girl.

There's a tiny signature in the bottom right corner that looks like Barye. So, probably by Barye Phillips?

Cool lines:

It takes some time (and effort) to get into "Carter Brown humour" mode. Stuff like this I do understand and find funny:

He believes the shortest distance between two points is a bullet.

Stuff like this I get, and I find amusing:

I flung open the front door and stepped out onto the porch, and that was as far as I got. A small blue sea broke over me, carrying me back into the entrance hall again. Then the sea sorted itself out into four beefy, uniformed cops, and a gray-suited character with a face that would have made him top man on the totem pole on any reservation.

"O.K.!" The gray-suited guy snarled at me. "Where's the body?"

I took a deep breath and looked down - the scarlet shirt was stretched as tight as it could be. "If you can't see the body, you need glasses," I said coldly.

And then there are the weird ones like this:

This radio gadget is a cute deal - when it gets around to eight o'clock, it switches on the radio all by itself. Then five minutes later it squawks like a Democrat who's just been goosed by an elephant.

Democrat goosed by an elephant?

The Desired (Carter Brown, 1959)

What the hell, let's quickly do another Carter Brown.

This one has a bit of Agatha Christie's feel about it. There is a closed group of quirky characters, and most of the action takes place in some secluded house. A thing to mention about this cast is that there's really no need for any of them to be particularly extraordinary. It neither helps nor hurts the story itself.

But I guess everything in Carter Brown's universe must be over the top, and it would be silly to complain about the lack of realism and sloppy characterisation. Let's instead move on and take a look at our hero.

Al Wheeler certainly is no Hercule Poirot and resembles more of something like the clueless Inspector Clouseau from the Pink Panther series. That's true especially in the first half, which ends with the failure of his ingenious plan to lure the killer into a trap. During the ambush, our man messes things up, gets knocked off, and - upon awaking - discovers the additional corpse that he now needs to deal with. But the blow on his head seems to do him some good because he gets his shit together and starts a proper investigation.

So, the second half is much better as the plot actually thickens, and the pace accelerates to a memorable and bizarre ending. Wheeler makes yet another fuckup that results in a shootout and a bunch of fresh corpses. There's this shy, fragile, young secretary, Ellen, who was abused both physically and mentally before this climax and is now understandably shaken and terrified by the whole ordeal. And yet, the bloodbath makes her horny!!?! So, guess how she and our hero decide to calm themselves down for half an hour until the law gets to the scene. Needless to say, the sex act will happen off the page.

And there's another instance of such sex & violence weirdness. Just as crazy as the one above.

Sexy Bella is needling and teasing our hero right from page one. But once she starts ridiculing his virility, he snaps and... basically starts raping her. The whole package - ripping off her clothes, twisting her arm, her struggling and crying... The entire page of such shit. He does regain his senses just in time and (I think) is ashamed of his attempt, but then it comes: "What made you stop?" and "Maybe that'll teach you not to reject an unconditional surrender when a girl offers one!"

It's just stupid. It's silly for all the usual reasons, and also because it's totally redundant, as it adds nothing to plot progression or character development. Would argue that the book is not misogynistic and just as sexist as most of the pulpy stuff written in that period. So, these isolated episodes don't feel genuinely mean or nasty; they are more like something thrown in to add a bit of spice. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the publishers encouraged content like this to stir up controversy and boost sales.

In any case, it's a shame, as it tarnishes what is otherwise a decent book.

3/5

Facts:

Hero:
Me, I'm a cop, but I look like a bum actor in search of a middle-aged matron worth her over-weight in diamonds.

The bad guy(s):
Tino Martens had been in the rackets since maybe the first time he whipped a diaper off the kid in the next cradle when the kid wasn't looking.

Dames:
Isobel Woods, Tom's daughter
A tall blonde, with her hair hanging down across one eye, and the build of a female Viking.

Ellen Mitchell, Tom's secretary
She had an intelligent, elfin face, and the kind of figure I started dreaming of way back when I first realized a honeymoon wasn't for eating.

And my favourite - Pearl, the ex-stripper, now Tom's spouse.
"I bet you look just the way Jean Harlow used to look," I said sincerely.

Location:
Fictitious Pine City

Body count:
6

Blackouts:
The usual stuff with explosions and pitch-black void:

Then the sky fell on my head, and the world drifted down around my face slowly, the pieces disintegrating in sharp, painful explosions of white light inside my skull. I could see the brilliant flashes and I knew the explosions had to be outside, but I felt the pain inside. Then suddenly it was all over, and I drifted comfortably in a pitch-black void, peaceful as the womb.

But the way he comes out afterwards is pretty original:

I was still swaying gently, like a teen-ager exposed to rock and roll for the first time.

References:
"Was it Jung who said the mind is its own censor - that we live in the same world, but to each individual it's a different world, that no happening or incident is the same to any two people?"
"I wouldn't know," I told her. "I do know it was Wheeler who asked the question and you haven't answered it yet."

I put Ellington's "Indigos" on the hi-fi machine because it made superb mood music right then. Most of the song titles seemed an accurate forecast of my future - "Solitude" - "Autumn Leaves" - and the rest of them.

I was listening to this record while writing the review and really liked it. Just gloomy and melancholic enough for these strange covid days

Title:
I'm not sure to whom this refers. True, all three women are desired, but none of the killings is a crime of passion.

Edition:
Signet D2654, Third Printing

Cover:
By McGinnis. From that perspective, shouldn't the mirror reflect her body?

Also, adding an earlier Signet edition cover painted by Baryé Phillips. A bit more accurate because the book actually opens with a car crash.

Cool lines:
Around one-thirty in the afternoon, Doc Murphy bounced into the apartment. He ripped off the bandages with the loving tenderness of a barracuda shark taking a sample bite out of a well-upholstered girl swimmer.
"Huh!" he grunted when the last bandage had been torn off. "The most amazing thing about you, Wheeler, is that you're healthy!"
"It's just clean living, Doc," I said modestly. "I live by the rules - the three W's - you know, wine, women and willful smoking."

Tino admired the excellent manicure job on his fingernails for a moment, then looked up at me with his big St. Bernard eyes.
"One of these days I might find the time for it," he said pleasantly. "It could be kind of amusing."
"Time for what?" I said. "Another manicure you don't need?"
"To take you apart, copper," he smiled thinly. "See what kind of sawdust comes running out."
"You said that deliberately," I told him reproachfully. "Now you know I won't sleep nights."

She bent over her typewriter, pounding the keys like they were part of my face. I lit a cigarette and though profound thoughts about life - like a good woman is never hard to find - it's the bad ones who are so hard to get.[The Coolest!]

Murder in the Key Club (Carter Brown, 1962)

Live snooker is finally back on after the three long covid-19 lockdown months! This means I can only spare my time for simple, quick reads, and there are not many that fit the bill better than Carter Brown's novels.

As usual, it follows the three-act structure. First, our hero, Rick Holman, the top showbiz fixer, gets hired as a sort of bodyguard by Carter Stanton, a sleazy nightclub and dirty magazine owner. And promptly gets a list of the usual suspects:

"Your editor, your wife, your sleeping partner, and your horn player," I said. "Anybody else?"

Yes, there will be a few more. One of them, none other than the (did he do it?) butler! So, the second act, the "rising action" section, will be spent by our hero interviewing the suspects and trying to get laid. This brings us to a conclusion, the mandatory roundup climax. And it's a silly affair. Check it out:

Stanton comes up with an ingenious plan of throwing a big, orgy-like party with all the above suspects invited. At its height, he announces his willingness to smooth things over in a civilized manner with whoever his potential killer may be. So he intends to discreetly turn off the lights and meet his nemesis in the study room. Of course, he neglects to inform the crowd that our Mr Fixer will be waiting there as well and will, oh well,... fix the issue with the sucker. One way or the other.

We all know that nothing good ever happens in crime novels once the lights are off, right?

Obviously, such a ridiculous proposition insults the would-be killer's intelligence and raises questions about Stanton's judgment in hiring Holman in the first place. You see, this asshole never misses an opportunity to remind our hero about the exuberant daily rate he's paying for his top services. Wouldn't it be better (cheaper) off to simply hire a muscle-man to wait in his study room? You decide. The whole thing is a bit too much tongue-in-cheek for my liking.

But it's still cool. Nothing spectacularly good or bad. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and it manages to avoid getting too silly most of the time. But, once again, I've found the puritanical take on sex interesting, and it reminded me a lot of Spillane and his adolescent portrayal of women (see the 'dames' section). Ridiculous to the point where the actual act of sex is wholly inferred:

"This is quite comfortable, really," she said in a drowsy voice. "Why don't you come on down?"
By the time I'd lit a cigarette, she was snoring gently.

A kind of "look but don't touch" approach, which I suppose would be laughable even for young adults these days. However, there's no problem with visceral violence:

He gave Stanton one barrel of the sawn-off shotgun, held tight in his hands, at point-blank range.
The little fat man spun aimlessly for a moment like a rag doll, then sprawled limply on his back across the carpet. Where his face had been, there was only a crimson horror.

So yeah, Carter Brown's books are products of their time. They don't seem to be poorly aged; let's say they've aged in a particular way. There's still a lot of charm in them if one bothers to look for it. And without getting too philosophical about it, I still enjoy picking them up from time to time.

3/5

Facts:

Hero:
"What was it Aginos of Stellar Productions called you? - an iconoclast? Yeah, that's it - an iconoclast. A breaker of idols, right? A nice way of saying a guy is just goddamned rude the whole time, right? But then, I guess when you've built a reputation as the Mr. Fixit of show biz the way you have, you can afford to be goddamn rude the whole time?"

"How about you, Mr. Holman? - how do you chisel a living?"
"I'm an industrial consultant," I said.
"It doesn't sound exactly exciting!" There was a quizzical look in her eyes, "You look like something different - a cross between a con man and a bouncer, maybe?"

The bad guy(s):
There's an ageing mobster:

"That means it's pretty dirty money," I said, dutifully lowering the volume. "Meyer's name is synonymous with about every big-time syndicate racket in the last thirty years."

And his muscle-man:

He was a kid and older than despair, both at the same time. Maybe all of twenty-two, white-faced, with dark eyes that jeered at the basic conception of humanity. In the old days they would have called him a torpedo, and these days they'd call him a psychopath. Either way, it added up to the same thing - an instrument of death, quick, competent, and professional. Just looking at him could make my scalp prickle uneasily.

Dames:
In this one, babes are called "houris" - a name for a pet or bunny (or whatever you call them) that Stanton uses for centrefold models in his magazine. Paula is the dumb one:

"She's built just fine," I said coldly. "But every time she opens her mouth, nothing comes out."

"You go for the intellectual kind of broad?" He nodded quickly.

Indeed, he does. Meet Nina, the intellectual houri:

A tall blonde... with an easy, graceful walk... small but sharply defined breasts... long graceful legs... every movement she made exuded an explosive exciting vitality... sharp, intelligent planes of her face... sparkingly alert hazel eyes

And let's not forget Stanton's wife Melissa:

She was a tall, statuesque redhead with calculating, cobalt-blue eyes, and her controlled sensual mouth was made to be savaged.

Location:
Another no-name city in Carter Brown's faux American crime world.

Body count:
4

The object of desire:
"That's why I hired you, Holman. You've got to find out who wants to kill me so bad, and stop them before they try again with real bullets!"

Blackouts:
I was doing just fine, right up until I reached the tenth stair - then the whole second story of the house caved in on my head.

Title:
Cool sounding but inaccurate. Although Stanton owns a club with such a name, none of the four murders occur there.

Edition:

Signet S2140. First printing, June 1962

Cover:
Lovely monochromatic painting by McGinnis. A bit Sin City-ish, isn't it? Not sure which houri she is supposed to be. Combination of Nina and Melissa?

Cool lines:
The first impression was of a second-hand missile salesman who'd always be safely out of the district before you tried your first blast-off from a homemade launching pad.

He grinned, showing the white horsey teeth that looked more like piano keys than anything else, and he had about four octaves bunched in his mouth.

The Ever-Loving Blues aka Death of a Doll (Carter Brown, 1961)

I assume this one was initially meant to be Carter's H'wood novel. Because for some unexplained reason, the big shot producer Guggenheimer (!) hires our man Danny Boyd and flies his gumshoes all the way from New York to California. The usual type of assignment - it's gonna be yet another case of finding the missing starlet.

Her name is Gloria Van Raven (!!), and Danny's job turns out to be trivial. Studio execs send him to interview Gloria's secretary, April Showers (!!!), and he gets the lucky break immediately. During his visit, Gloria phones April, informs her that she's enjoying herself on some yacht in Florida and asks April to bring her some clothes. Danny promptly recruits April as his assistant (or something like that), helps her pack, and they are off to the East Coast.

All this happens by page #10, and around this time, I started to raise my eyebrows a bit. True, Mr Brown was Australian who, according to Wikipedia, had not visited the States very frequently, but surely he must have known about the private detective jurisdiction? You know - the thing that cops and/or district attorneys always bitch about and threaten our private detective heroes with. And when you think about it, this whole thing doesn't make much sense from the pure logistical point of view, either. I mean, wouldn't it be simpler to send Danny directly from New York to Florida? And surely it would be much more economical for Gloria to simply buy a couple of bikinis and not bother her girl Friday to fly a suitcase of clothes all across America? Especially because she (1) intended to stay on that yacht for only five days at most, (2) was broke, and (3) didn't wear many clothes anyway...

But what the hell. Brown was contracted to write two novels and an additional short story each month (!?!!), so, understandably, he couldn't pay attention to every single minor detail. Let's move on.

Upon Danny and April's arrival, the rest of the cast is introduced quickly. They are the most stereotypical bunch possible: nightclub singer Ellen, bankrupted Wall Street trader, junkie trumpet player Muscat Mullins, Las Vegas big-shot gambler Baron accompanied by goons Meatball Murphy and Fingers Malloy (long story), fake insurance detective and, of course, mandatory local police detective.

The plot thickens... but unfortunately, not much. It seems that Brown ran out of steam by inventing all those ridiculous names and neglected the story a bit. Because it literally doesn't move anywhere, our cast is confined in cabins of some small town called Bahia Mar for the rest of the novel. There is not much action worth mentioning, except for a pathetic (probably meant to be humorous) attempt to reconstruct the murder.

So it's a bit like Agatha Christie's setup once again. With an inevitable round-up of suspects and a spectacular and surprising final whodunit revealing act. And spectacular indeed is! Danny manages to fuck it up even more than he did in The Sometime Wife. Again, he forgets to disarm the culprit, and this time, his ignorance results in a couple of fresh kills, one by a decapitation! Crazy stuff.

Nice, quick read, although a bit too goofy for me.

3/5 (Adding an extra point for the hilarious characters names)

Facts:

Hero:
"So you're Danny Boyd," he growled. "The real smart operator from the East Coast who can fix anything - for money."

And let us not forget about his profile:

"I'm Danny Boyd," I told her slowly, giving her plenty of time to catch the profile's full impact. "From the studio."
"It figures," she said pleasantly. "Only an actor talks to you sideways to be sure you don't miss it. How's the left view? Just as stunning, I bet."

Location: 
Starts briefly in Hollywood, but then the action moves to Florida to a fictional (?) resort/yacht harbour called Bahia Mar:

Bahia Mar looked like every guy's dream of how to live after the Bureau of Internal Revenue has made that glorious mistake and added five zeros to your ten-dollar refund check.

Body count:  

4

The object of desire: 
Guggenheimer sighted heavily. "I wouldn't worry about Gloria, only every time she makes a new picture, it never makes less than a three million gross at the box office. It's not the dame I care about, you understand, Boyd? It's the money."

Dames:
Gloria Van Raven - "redhead built with the exuberant generosity of a Renoir painting..." with "twin peaks of her Junoesque breasts..." who "reminded me of a still from the French movie that gave one of the South Dakota censors a coronary occlusion last year."

Gloria's secretary blue-eyed blonde April Showers who could "match the Van Raven figure any time - curve for breathtaking curve".

And finally, Ellen Fitzroy, the nightclub singer - "A tall brunette... the full curves... her strong white teeth making a brilliant contrast with the dark tan of her body."

Strong white teeth!? 

Blackouts: 
I got struck by lightning. It hit in back of my right ear and the whole world exploded, hurling me way out into a black, bottomless void.

Title: 
"It's his own composition of course," Valdez said slowly. "He calls it 'The Ever-Loving Blues'."
"They figure a jazzman's no-good unless he's unhappy," I said, "and the real top men suffered all their lives. If the quality of that composition's any standard, Mullins must be the unhappiest guy on the whole earth!"

Edition:  
Signet #1919, First printing, March 1961

Cover: 
Jazz and babe - the winning combination. But it's only half accurate. There's a trumpet player in this one, but there's no scene with April (remember - she's the only blonde one) holding a gun. 
Beautiful illustration. The artist is not credited, but I'm pretty sure it's the work of McGinnis. 

Cool lines: 

"Where was she last seen?" I asked
"Check with her girl Friday," he said curtly. "She's a nice girl."
"Here - in Hollywood?" I stared at him. "You're kidding."
Guggenheimer suddenly looked tired. "I got gag writers I pay for that kind of corn, Boyd."

"You must be April Showers," I said between my teeth. "What was if before? May Schmaltz?"
"If it was to trade insults, why didn't the studio send a writer?" she asked curiously.

The Sometime Wife (Carter Brown, 1965)

This one opens with a pretty silly bit of wisdom:

The next best thing to having a rich, good-looking dame for a client is having a rich client.

It then proceeds to the most narcissistic main protagonist introduction I can remember. Along with a witty response which Oscar Wilde himself would be proud of:

"My name's Boyd," I told her. Then I gave her a look at my left profile, which is sheer perfection in itself, to bring a little glamour into her drab life. "Mr. Vanossa is expecting me."
"He's waiting in the library." She gave me a cold beady-eyed look. "And with a name like Boyd, you should be able to look people straight in the eye without twitching your head like that the whole time!"

So, the tone is set, and we now know better than to expect some ultra-hard-boiled stuff. Our sleuth in this one is Danny Boyd, and he is hired by some extravagant (sort of) upper-middle-class (kind of) asshole to find his missing wife. And his motive for bringing her back is pretty cool: since she has access to the household money, he wants to bring her home in time to pay the bills at the end of the month.

Which is cool. I like plots driven by simple vehicles. Of course, no simple missing person case remains just that for long in any crime novel. They sooner or later all turn into murders, and in this one, it is pretty soon - the body count meter starts rolling in the second chapter. From then on, the whole thing loses some of its intensity. You see, Danny's MO is a bit strange: he keeps changing his clients, and every new one points him to a fresh suspect. He wanders around, and instead of conducting some proper interviews, he keeps explaining what he knows to anyone willing to listen to him.

But since the man is a private detective, I still had a feeling that he knew what he was doing. I wasn't so sure once I came to this:
 
"Why are you taking me back there?"
"Because that's where it happened," I said. "Because whoever murdered Randolph wanted him dead, and you and Charlie didn't."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she snarled.
"I'm not too sure myself," I admitted. "That's why we're going back to the beach house to find out."

Whoever murdered Randolph wanted him dead!? I don't know how Bill Pronzini missed this one when he put together his two Gun in Cheek masterpieces.

Anyway, they reach the beach house where the whole cast is assembled, so the stage is ready for the final revelation. Don't like that Agatha Christie type shit at all, and just when I started to yawn, it happened! The best part of the book by far! The whole whodunit revelation drama thing goes spectacularly wrong. Danny is so incompetent that he fails to notice that not just one, but two of the bad guys are carrying guns. So they disarm him and then even start to plot some shit to make our hero a fall guy. Not sure how intentionally funny this is supposed to be, but I loved it. This is what I call an original twist! And don't worry - Danny will shoot his way out (although it's not explained how he managed to obtain a gun) and save the day.

It's an easy read, and with only 120 pages, this is a perfect book to take on a plane. Lots of charming craziness in it, and I would almost call it cute, but there are a few nasty (not needed at all) fags remarks, and our hero is kind of obnoxious every now and then. For fuck's sake - you don't get a girl drunk to fuck her!

3.5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Danny Boyd, PI
 

"Oh no! This is hysterical, it really is! Don't tell me you're some kind of professional snooper, Boyd?"

"Private detective," I grunted. 

And he has this weird thing about his profile. Seems he tries this "tick" to impress every woman he runs into, and (hardly surprising) it never actually works:

"My name's Boyd - Danny Boyd." I gave her the profile, right then left, and kind of slow so she'd have plenty of time to appreciate it.

"You have a stiff neck?" The caution in her voice warmed into sickening sympathy. "It's the humidity."

Location:
New York City + several trips to Northport on Long Island.

Body count:  

3

Dames:
Mrs Karen Vanossa: She had a kind of tempestuous beauty, with smouldering dark eyes colored to match her hair, a straight nose, and a firm but strongly sensual mouth.

Nina North: She was in her early twenties, I figured; a blue-eyed blonde with the kind of hungover lower lip which said she knew what she wanted, while the upper lip had a slightly hesitant look like it agreed about that okay but was still surprised.

Mrs Randolph: She also had that indefinable something that a good maitre d' can spot at fifty paces, that combination of breeding, social position, and - best of all - money.

And I should probably also mention Danny's red-headed, green-eyed secretary Fran Jordan. They have some sort of Velda/Hammer relationship with lots of sexual innuendo around them, but it's all pretty silly, and she doesn't contribute much to the story. 

Blackouts: 
Not sure. There's a cool scene when the blonde volcano (=Nina) storms into Danny's apartment screaming "Snake-in-the-Village!" at him:

"I'll kill you!" she announced passionately. "I'll beat your brains out and feed them to the ducks on Central Park Lane!" [Fatale]

She cracks him across the nose with her purse, and then he trips over the rug (because rather than paying attention to the blonde volcano, he instead chooses to admire its sexy body) and nosedives across the floor:

I had a vague impression of a million little white balls flying over my head, then her knee stuck me in the shoulder. The rest was a combined blur of sound and sight, something like Cape Kennedy in miniature.

I'm not sure if this counts as a proper blackout, but I think it's worth mentioning. Snakes in the Village, ducks in Central Park!
 

Title: 
Don't really get it.

Edition:  
New English Library, Four Square Books, 1966. I couldn't find a scan of this edition's cover online, and I'm too lazy to create one, so I've used the Signet edition cover, which is practically identical.

Cover: 
It has to be Nina, since neither of the other two is blonde. And besides that, they both have small breasts (Karen's are high-peaked, and Mrs Randolph's are pointed with desire!). 

The illustration is not credited, but it's pretty obvious that its author is McGinnis. If nothing else, check out her unproportionally long left leg.

Cool lines:  
Maybe it wasn't his fault, I thought generously; maybe he came from a long line of kissing cousins who just kept right on marrying each other and Charlie was the end product.

"Didn't I tell you Karen is a nympho?"
"Not in so many words," I muttered. "It doesn't faze you any?"
"I find it somewhat of a relief," he said casually. "I hate any form of physical exercise."

"You've found Frederic!" Jane's face was suddenly animated again. "That's wonderful! Where's he?"
"Down at the beach," I told her. "To be strictly accurate, he's down in the beach."[The Coolest!]