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!

The Star Trap (Robert Colby, 1960)

This one truly is a quick read. Not just because of the fairly large font and decent line spacing, it simply races through at neck-breaking speed. Here's an example: there is a highway chase scene in which our hero is pursued by the cops at 96 mph (=154 km/h!). The real deal. With the red lights and blaring sirens behind him. Glenn is an actor, not the badass Ryan O'Neil-like driver - so how the hell does he manage to escape?

Well, it won't take him longer than a short paragraph:

I searched frantically for some brilliant manoeuvre and there wasn't any. Then I swayed past a truck and into the first decent curve. The red eye closed from view. I had a few seconds' grace and when I saw the motel with the vacancy sign, I prayed hard and braked harder. I nearly turned over but it was a big driveway and I slid into it with the rear-end skidding, cut my lights and faded around the back of the building into a parking space as I heard them go by.

So next time you get chased by the cops, remember to pray hard!

A bit hectic, but not bad at all. It starts as a classic mystery of murder & blackmail in which the hero gets used and framed by the femme-fatale (he, of course, knows that he's being fucked) but then gradually changes into a terrific thriller. Nothing really inventive or original, but it does have a little twist at the end that I liked. Besides, it was also lovely to read a Hollywood story in which the protagonists are not super-rich and famous. Instead, they are B-movie actresses turned starlets and shady Las Vegas gangsters turned "producers". Good stuff, gritty and hard-boiled. 

This is my first Robert Colby, and it has left me quite impressed. I googled the guy, and it turned out he was pretty prolific. His most praised novel seems to be "The Captain Must Die", and - this simply has to be destiny! I found it on eBay with a starting bid of $0.99 and no bidders yet. It ends in ten hours, so Mr Colby may appear on this blog again soon.

4/5

Facts:

Hero:

She couldn't handle the body alone. So she called the prize goat of them all - lover boy Glenn Harley.

The bad guy(s):

B-movie actor Norman Rainey, who "was the worst kind of cruel, sneaky animal", and his sleazy boss, the blackmailing mastermind Marvin Grinstead, who "squeezes people. Little people and big people. He's like an evil god".

Dames: 

The rapid pace of narration slows down a couple of gears when it comes to the ladies. Every noun gets several superlative adjectives, and descriptions of our beauties are longer than the high-speed highway chase. There are two. First, the good (?) Nancy:

Her face was heart-shaped, intense and utterly delicate. Her eyes were wide, deep brown and calmly, innocently provocative. Her mouth was a masterpiece of soft demand.

She was so slim, so narrow of waist and hip that her body was a showcase for the high curves.

She seemed built for all things tender and sensual, while her eyes and manner intriguingly denied the knowledge of love.

And not so good, Mary Ann:

She was tall. Her hair was the colour of dark walnut polished with a wood-lover's hand. It fell sinuous and causal down one side of a face composed in lines of languid grace. A young face, wise but without hardness. In the misty lavender of the eyes and around the lazy spread of mouth, there was a look of beckoning towards some dream of which she had a sly and special knowledge.

Beneath a turquoise hostess gown, it was clear that she had the figure for marvellous dreams.

I was probably intriguingly denied the knowledge of Nancy's love because I found Mary Ann way cooler. She drinks her bourbon straight and is stoned all the time:

I don't tick, I soar. And I do have the habit bad. I'm incurable. I have no shame about it. I have no shame about anything I do of my own free will.

It needs to be said that even with a couple of such knockout babes, the sex angle is ridiculously underplayed. We get an indication of this pretty soon when Glenn is "ashamed of his instant reaction" after simply being close to Nancy. One would imagine that not getting a hard-on would be something to be embarrassed about?

Soon after this "incident", it gets a bit kinky. How else would you explain that they actually do get laid immediately after burying the corpse in the back garden? 

His intercourse with Mary Ann is not kinky. It's just weird. One moment, they are necking in some bar, but in the next one, we find them in the car having this cryptic conversation:

"Sorry I can't explain now, Mary Ann. But thanks for the lift. And... everything else."

"And after all the... everything else, pet, you still don't trust me?"

"Everything else"? Huh?

Location:

L.A.

Body count:

1

Blackouts:

It opens with our hero nursing a hangover, but this doesn't really count.

Cool Blurbs:

Wild, hot and simple

And I couldn't agree more!

Title:

Cool sounding but inaccurate. I cannot remember any star traps being set. But then again, maybe I've missed it in the rapid development.

Edition:

Gold Medal #538, U.K. Edition, 1962 

Cover:

I was surprised to see pulpcovers.com crediting the illustration to McGinnis. Doesn't really look like the master's typical style, does it? If nothing else, her legs are not long enough... But hey, it's not bad at all. I would benefit from a gun and/or a stack of money on the bed.

Cool lines:

I needed time to hate. And time to think. And there wasn't time for either.

Revenge (Jack Ehrlich, 1958)

It's always a pleasure to read something different. This one is memorable for several reasons, and let's start with its unpredictability. The title and the cover suggest a somewhat sleazy run-of-the-mill pulp yarn, so it comes as a surprise when it opens with a proper, well-planned and executed bank heist. And continues with our anti-hero raping a woman! Encouraged by getting away with these crimes, he promptly ups the ante and assassinates some local mobster!?! There's simply no telling where the story will go next, but it's pretty obvious it won't end well. And indeed, it does culminate in a big clusterfuck, with no sign of remorse or redemption from our asshole protagonist.

Described in this way, you might think it's all a big mess, but I'm happy to report otherwise. The author manages to keep it tight, and there's a method to all this madness supported by some pretty twisted rationality that drives the narration. Definitely not your typical escapist quick read. I really needed to pay attention since there's not much dialogue, and the narrator frequently digresses into the past, describing and referencing the events that trigger his present actions.

 And most of all, it's not easy to stomach the sick shit like this:

I do believe that no woman can be taken only through rape. Except for the oddball, women are natural whores, and to make one requires very little. It's like Hoover said, a chicken in every pot and a whore in every bed. It's the American dream. A vine-covered cottage which is the price a guy has to pay.....

It doesn't change the fact that every man sells his soul to make a buck and every woman sells her body to share it with him. And it isn't really a bad arrangement...

But Ogden Nash once said it and I'll buy it: give the sissy his seduction, the he-man wants his rape.

Crazy. Simply insane. Would dare to guess that it was probably even more offensive in its time than it would be today in (unlikely) case it would even get published.

So yeah, Revenge is not a book about heist or rape or assassination. Instead, it's a character study of the sociopath. A guy who is full of hate and loathing for himself and society. 

Intense stuff, and even though it does get a bit repetitive at times, there are still plenty of fascinating and occasionally even funny parts. For example, I liked his planning of the crimes. He's an ex-D.A. assistant, so he knows all the police technicalities; therefore, he prepares everything in advance with the utmost attention to detail and enthusiasm. In his words: "It was a problem I enjoyed solving". To be honest, the guy does have a pretty decent sense of humour. Check out the 'cool lines' section of the facts below.

Not so humorous are the parts that deal with his mental state. There are numerous factors and circumstances like his dominant father, shameful (in his mind) army service, distrust of women, sexual frustrations, etc. They are, of course, all intertwined, and it's hard to separate causes from the effects. I'm not sure whether I managed to solve the mystery of what had made this guy insane. I think the final piece of the puzzle lies in the bizarre ending in which he finds refuge in his best friend's house. I'm not sure how to interpret the whole episode with the wife and kids, and I'll have to think about it a bit. One confusing little nasty mindfuck this is.

An interesting book, memorable for many things. Most are good, and some are simply awful. I'm pretty sure that some of Jim Thompson's psychotic characters wouldn't mind too much hanging out with John Cummings.

4/5

Facts:

Hero:

John Cummings. A prototype of a young, white, male suburban middle-class individual. A former high-school football star and assistant DA, these days not the most prosperous lawyer, but a fairly efficient criminal with a decent strike rate. Also, 100% psychopath.

Dames: 

His ex-wife Lou, his rape victim Jennie a.k.a. Mrs John Frederick Fitch French III (!!) and his most recent romantic and emotional confusion personified Sue. But they are pretty much dehumanized, and we never really get a chance to know them better. I mean, check out his opinion of Sue and bear in mind that she gets the kindest share of his misogyny compared to the other two:

Sue is a hell of a feminine dame and her clean freshness is more exciting than the most sultry slut.

Location:

A small town near New York

Body count:

1

The object of desire:

John is pissed off at the whole wide world and takes revenge against it.

Blackouts:

There was no pain at all, that's the funny thing. I had to fight to keep my mind concentrating. A lot of thoughts kept crowding in which had nothing to do with me. I tried to talk to myself but the gray blur came closer and closer to me and blanketed me.

References:

Then I piled the hi-fi full of records, mostly piano concertos. I put the Emperor Concerto on last because it's my favorite and played on two sides. I could flip the stack after the first playing and hear the ending of the Emperor in the right sequence.

Title:

See the "Object of desire" section above

Edition:

Dell #A168, First Edition, October 1958

Cover:

By McGinnis. It's one of those creepy, unsettling ones that makes you feel like a voyeur and gives you a bit of a guilty conscience for liking it.

Cool lines:

I maintained a detached interest in Lou's life like a man does in common stock which he sold too early and is now doing great things.

I felt revengeful and full of loathing and I felt the small and insignificant feeling a man gets when he gets looked over during a job interview.

Bit by bit, my practice was dropping off more every month. The golden degree tacked onto the Cummings name was fading into an oxidized bronze. It didn't matter, but it galled me because it proved people had more sense than I was willing to admit.

It was like a fever. Ideas and thoughts kept parading through my mind and I watched them like a bored jazz fan at the opera.

Syndicate Girl (Frank Kane, 1958)

It starts with a bang. Several bangs actually: a judge is assassinated, his wife witnesses the killing, so she becomes collateral damage, a crooked cop frames a good cop for the hit, and finally - to make it sure, I guess - the mobsters kill him and stage his death as a suicide.

And the best part is that all this mayhem is orchestrated by a woman. The woman! The titular Syndicate Girl goes by the name of Mary Lister. She's a mob fixer and the top dog's messenger, later described as "more lethal than the atom bomb". Wow! Not often do we come across such a badass heroine in these old paperbacks.

However, on page 24 (after the job is well done), she departs for the airport, and we must wait until page 167 for her to reappear. And when she does, we find her contemplating a cruise with her mafioso hubby because "the things are pretty quiet, and it's been a long time since we were away alone". And her man is planning to pull out of the rackets altogether.

So much for the atom bomb...

But anyway, our syndicate girl will never make that cruise. She packs her stuff and flies back to Jackson City to give this sleeper's remaining 25 pages at least some kind of a climax. However, at this point, I had stopped caring about how it would finish as long as it would be soon.

You may ask what happens in those 143 pages when she's not around? Nothing really worth reporting. Yet another Eliot Ness story about fighting corruption and ties between politicians, mobsters, and the media. Painfully slow and predictable.

This is my third or fourth Kane's non-Liddell book, and I'm losing my patience.

2/5

Facts:

Hero:
Mal Waters, a high school football hero who went on to greater glory at Harvard Law School, interrupted his studies to serve his time as a squadron leader in Korea and finally returned to his hometown to become the D.A.

The bad guy(s):
Sylvan Murphy, top brains in the Syndicate. It was he who first saw the opportunities and advantages of organizing crime on a businesslike basis throughout the country.

I disagree with this, especially after recently spending a week in Sicily, where I visited the No Mafia museum in Palermo.

Dames:
Besides Mary, there are several other tall and well-proportioned gals:

• Rita - tall, breath-takingly proportioned redhead
• Cora  - tall full-breasted brunette
• Bonnie - tall, loosely put together in a way that flowed tantalizingly when she walked
• Marta - tall for a girl, deep-breasted... full, even thick-lipped mouth

In all fairness, there actually is one cliche that the author manages to avoid. After being dumped by the cold and calculating Rita, our hero doesn't end up with Marta even though she's extremely honest, caring, understanding, etc.

Location:
Fictional Jackson City

Body count:
6

Way too low, considering that we get the first three corpses in the opening chapter and that the book is almost 200 pages long. There should definitely be more. If nothing else, the two top dogs and both henchmen survive this one.

Also worth mentioning is that the whole episode about Bonnie's death and framing Mel is a blatant copy and paste from Kane's Green Light for Death published ten years earlier. Almost two pages, word by word.

The object of desire:
There's a cancer eating at this town. You can cover it up, but that doesn't stop it from eating. The only way to fight it is to tear it out of by the roots. That's what I intend to do.

Blackouts:
He was dizzily aware of a sinking sensation, then the ground came up and hit him in the face.

He tried to turn over, the floor tiled sickeningly and he slid into a merciful black void which erased the white-hot flashes and the searing pain from his skull.
Joey stared down at him without expression. "I don't think he's likely to get telephonitis in the next hour."

Cool Blurbs:
She was as tough as the hoods she worked with - until she met a man who made her feel like a woman

Not that cool, I'll admit. However, I decided to include it because it's completely false. No sparks, except a few leaded ones, are flying between Mary and Mal.

Title:
Well, even though Mary is not really the heroine, the title "Syndicate Girl" is much more cool-sounding than "D.A. Boy"

Edition:
Dell B123, First Edition, First printing - December 1958

Cover:
By McGinnis. It's one of his rare ones with no long legs, but still no less astounding.

Cool lines:
The killer hesitated for a moment, as though debating the advisability of making sure of the second kill. Instead he sprinted across the lawn to a row of hemlocks that had been planted to insure privacy. He melted into the shadows, satisfied there was no immediate pursuit.

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.

Target: Mike Shayne (Brett Halliday, 1959)

End of the hiatus, I'm back! Plenty of time to kill in these strange covid times, and besides, I've been missing the quiet nights in the company of my good friends Arthur Guinness, Joe Camel, Tom Waits and such. So, let's make social distancing fun again!

The good old gumshoe Michael Shayne is as good as anyone to help me restart this blog. I keep chasing these books on eBay because of their incredible McGinnis' covers and keep reading them even though they turn out to be pretty lame for the most part. Especially the latter additions to the series, when they were penned by God knows which ghostwriter, vary a lot in quality. With over 200 pages, this one is quite hefty, so I was reluctant to pick it up. But as usual, I was eventually persuaded by the voluptuous blonde giving me looks from the bookshelf.

Glad I did, and I'm happy to report that the book's length is more than justified, as it covers two intertwining stories. They both revolve around an ex-con who's planning a heist while also dividing his attention to plot the murder of a particular private detective who had put him into the slammer.

The heist part is excellent. It's not the usual bank or armoured car job, but a high-stakes private poker game on the top floor of a luxurious hotel, which makes it a bit more elaborate. The author puts in a good effort to describe just enough details of our team's preparation and execution. Which goes reasonably smoothly, and they actually manage to pull it off! During the heist, there's a cool detail that reminded me of Melville's Bob le Flambeur when Clayton (the inside man) gets on the roll with the dice and starts winning big time. Don't know; maybe our mysterious ghostwriter also saw the movie and got inspired. It was released only three years before the publication of this book.

The team of misfits makes it interesting: along with Clayton, there's a femme fatale past her prime (both of them on their "last job") and a trigger-happy, somewhat psychotic kid. A well-known template that has been used countless times before and since, and it works well here. The shifting alliances and relationships between the three are sometimes more compelling than the job itself. Good stuff, indeed.

What ruins it for me is our main man himself. Shayne is Mike Hammer's distant cousin, so excessive drinking and a conservative, macho persona do come along with the territory. And we've got used to this. Fine. However, in this case, his "lone wolf against the system" attitude is taken to absurd and even comical extremes. His dogged determination goes as crazy as beating the cops (twice!), and in the final showdown, he literally uses his wheelchair as a weapon. It stopped being funny after 50 pages and became simply annoying for the remaining 150+.

But all in all, this one is an interesting addition to the series. Also, to be fair, it does have a cool identity swap twist at the end that I didn't see coming. And now, when this one is off the shelf, I can see another beauty smiling straight at me. So stay tuned.

3.5/5

Facts:

Hero:

"Is Shayne still around?"
"Who?" she asked sleepily.
"Mike Shayne, the fearless, incorruptible, two-fisted private eye."

And then a tall, rangy figure came out of the hotel. His shoulders were wide and powerful, and he had the narrow hips and long legs of an athlete. His face was deeply lined. Even before she saw the red hair Miriam knew that this was Mike Shayne.

Dames:

Barring Shayne's faithful secretary and love interest, Lucy, Miriam is the only woman in this one. I'm including the back cover scan, but that description doesn't do her justice. I found her to be quite a complex and likeable character.

Location:
Miami

Body count:
Only 2. Possibly another one, as Clayton is badly injured, and doctors don't know if he will survive.

The object of desire:
For Clayton - killing Shayne while getting some money and eventually going away with Miriam

For Miriam - getting some money at first but at the end simply keeping Clayton 

For Fran - killing some people

Blackouts:
None less than on three occasions. During the climax, he first gets shot point-blank in his side with a dummy bullet, but he's such a tough guy that it doesn't put him out yet. But the next bullet, this one to his head (and obviously dummy too), does the job and "The night closed down around him".

Once he's in the hospital and interrogated by the cops, he blacks out due to exhaustion: "Shayne could feel the mists beginning to close in around him again."

Finally, after his semi-successful wheelchair attack, he loses consciousness because he's totally exhausted from the fight and preceding chase. This one is also pretty straightforward: "He felt a violent explosion behind his eyes."

Title: 

Clayton holds a grudge against Shayne for putting him in prison thirteen years ago. Now he's out, and it's payback time.

Dedicated to:

"For Leah and Lee with Love"

Blame it on covid-19 psychosis, but I actually did some sleuthing myself to find out who the author is. From this very informative page on Shayne, I got the list of ghostwriters and then checked their biographies for kids, spouses or friends named Leah and Lee. Came up with nothing. So far...

Edition:

Dell D355, first printing - June 1960

Cover:

Another gorgeous and iconic illustration by Bob McGinnis. A fantastic job that must have substantially accelerated the sales (it definitely made me buy it). 

Cool lines:

As he crouched on the floor, his forehead was on a level with her automatic. He started to bring up the tommy gun. She shot him between the eyes.[Fatale]

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.

Cut Me In aka The Proposition (Hunt Collins aka Ed McBain, 1954)

Routine stuff, I don't have much to write about. I don't know whether it qualifies as a 'proper' mystery novel. I mean, it does have all the required ingredients, like corpses, beautiful women, cops, and a showbiz background, etc., but our hero is more or less completely oblivious to all this. Josh Blake has lost an ultra-lucrative contract that would launch him and his publishing company into the big time, and now his sole interest is in getting the damn paperback.

It does start a bit more promising. We find our hero hungover in the opening scene and just waking up next to a beautiful girl. One night stand it was, and he cannot even remember her name. A bit predictable but still cool, as this can mean nothing else but that sooner or later, he will need her to confirm his alibi for the last night. The next scene is a nice nod to the Maltese Falcon - Blake's partner was killed, and now his freshly widowed wife tries to seduce Blake. But he doesn't care much about Gilbert's demise or his horny wife. So, everything is set for an "innocent man without an alibi on the run" type of story... which, unfortunately, never materialises.

Instead, it turns into a very simplistic and rather dull affair that loses its suspense with every chapter you read. I would say that the most ridiculous one is the 9th, in which Blake gets abducted by two thugs. But don't expect some hard-boiled beatings and/or interrogations and/or spectacular shootout escape because our trio soon starts drinking and playing cards!

With lots of dialogue, simple language, a flat storyline and some sexy bits thrown in for good measure, it at least isn't boring. A quick read, but unfortunately, I didn't particularly enjoy this one. McBain or no McBain...

2.5/5
(like for So Nude, So Dead, I'm adding an extra half point for the included excellent short story Now Die In It)

Facts:

Hero: 
Josh Blake, a surviving half of the Gilbert & Blake literary agency

Location:
New York

Body count: 3

Dames: 
A bunch of them: Lydia the secretary ("a shrewd, talented bitch"), Mr Becker's secretary (with just a single appearance and without any role whatsoever but still "one of the most thriving creatures I had ever seen") and of course "cleanly built, with full, flowing curves" Cal Stewart.

Shrewd, thriving, cleanly built???

The object of desire:  
Don't misunderstand me. I wasn't playing cop. I'd never played cop in my life, and I certainly wasn't starting now. I was, I suppose, primarily interested in the deal, and what the murders could do to kill the deal. 

Blackouts: 
My cheek exploded in a yellow burst of pain, and then little yellow bubbles drifted across the top of my skull, turned to purple, brown, black. They all flooded together, like black pebbles being sucked down a drain, and the blackness swirled faster and faster until my consciousness went down the drain with the pebbles.

Hardly surprisingly, he loses consciousness again after drinking a shitload of vodka and gin. But what is weird and doesn't exactly make sense is that less than two hours later, he manages not only to wake up but also to drive to Miss Stewart's house, where they have sex. Strange brand of Vodka indeed...
 

Title: 
I'm unsure how to interpret either the original or the revised one. In both cases, it has something to do with that copyright contract. Were those TV rights proposed to Blake? Was he cut in on the deal? Does it even matter?

Edition:  
Hard Case Crime #122

Cover: 
By McGinnis, one of his trademark long-legged beauties. With a little exception... why the sore knees?

Cool lines:

/

Pay-Off in Blood (Brett Halliday,1962)

Blackmail goes wrong as the victim is murdered shortly after the money handover. What makes this short little pulp unusual and memorable is that none of the protagonists seems much interested in the blackmailing aspect of the crime at all. Our gumshoe hero, his sidekick friend and the cops just want to find out who the killer is.

Fast and furious. A lot happens, and it happens in under a couple of days. Shayne is super busy and relentless in his pursuit. Even though he has a reputation as a ladies' man, he ignores the advances of Miss Belle. Two goons "put him out cold" (see the facts below), but he returns the favour by kicking the shit out of them and their asshole debt-collecting boss. Where does he get all this energy, I wondered. Maybe all those cognacs helped?

Good stuff with some excellent plotting and a clever twist that I didn't see coming. Maybe a bit too old-fashioned for the 60s, but that's the way I like them. My only objection is that it's slightly too fast. Apparently, Davis Dresser got tired of writing Shayne in '58 and handed the series to a publisher. I assume that he supervised the novels anyway and maybe imposed the word count limit on his ghostwriters? It doesn't really matter, Pay-Off in Blood definitely pays off!

4/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Mike Shayne P.I.

"Give him a fast shake-down, Jud. This joker has a rep for having all sorts of tricks up his sleeve." 

By the way, I watched The Man Who Wouldn't Die after reading this one and found the whole thing too silly. Are the TV episodes from '61 with Richard Denning as Shayne any better? I can see on Amazon that a DVD was released in 2007 with a couple of episodes, but it's a bit pricey...

Location: 
Miami

Body count: 

1

Dames:

The widow:
"...one of these, well, sort of professional southern belles... pretty and plump and young-looking, and never forgetting that her family was real southern gentility... the way she'd been brought up, she just couldn't help flirting... soft, platinum hair... very wide and very blue eyes..."

Miss Belle Jackson, Dr Ambrose's nurse:
"quite a hunk of a woman... beautifully formed thighs... big breasts... well-fleshed, un-lined face and soft, blue eyes..."

Had some trouble imagining Belle: what the hell is a "well-fleshed, un-lined face" supposed to be!?

Blackouts: 
"Put him out cold, Jud."
Jud was, as Shayne had realized the first moment he saw him, a professional. He carried out the boss's order swiftly and efficiently. Shayne felt numbing pain, and then he heard no more and was conscious of nothing more for a long time.

Title: 
A bit overdramatic. The blackmail money handover occurs without any problems, so pay-off is not exactly in blood... But still sounds cool and definitely better than something like "Bloody Pay-Off".

Edition: 
Mayflower-Dell Paperback, 1963

Cover: 
By Robert McGinnis, beautiful and hot as they all are. I would assume that it wasn't commissioned for this novel specifically, since the lady is neither the Doctor's widow (with soft, platinum hair) nor his nurse (a hunk of a woman).

Cool lines: 

"Lots of people come to me who are being blackmailed. Just as people come to you with venereal diseases. Some deserve it and some don't. How bad is it, doctor?"

To be honest, this is one of Shayne's rare witty ones. Mostly, his retorts go as far as a cynical "Very, very funny". But there are some cool lines reserved for the bad guys:

He relaxed against the seat cushion and asked, "All right if I reach for a cigarette?"
Jud said indifferently, "Sure. Just don't make any sudden moves because my trigger-finger is nervous."

"I see him, Jud. I guess he likes the kind of games we play."
"Sure," Jud agreed happily. "I bet he's one of them mas-so-kists."

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!]

Model For Murder (Robert Terrall writing as Robert Kyle, 1959)

This one doesn't waste any time with the usual introductions. On the very first page, there's a mandatory "I'm a private investigator" monologue, and next, we learn that we are in New York and that our gumshoe is already on the case. He's about to hand $500 to a girl blackmailing his client (page two) when she starts shooting at him through the closed door. And then, for some strange reason (or is she simply pissed off at herself for failing to kill him?), she decides to shoot herself!?! And we are still in the middle of the third page!

Great start! And it gets better - proxy endorsement letter (something related to stock exchange trading), stolen jewellery, and counterfeit money are objects of desire in this one. They are, of course, also the reasons for the mayhem that follows. Blackmail, murder, robberies from the past, fucked up families, sleazy hotels (and fancy hotels with sleazy detectives), gangsters, G-men, cops, jazz clubs, beautiful women, tough guys,... and our private dick in the middle of all this. Used and eventually betrayed by his client.

It may sound too convoluted, but it's easy to follow. Partly because the action is almost entirely driven by our hero. Not much happens without Ben's actions actually provoking it. There are no parallel sub-plots that would later cause some dramatic twists. No clues are given that would not eventually become important.

But although a little too linear for my liking, it's still an enjoyable old-school hard-boiled novel. Always a pleasure to go back in time when people lived in hotels, used public phone booths and when police used something called Speed-photo to send fingerprints around. Amazingly, even the mighty Google cannot come up with anything useful when searching for "Speed-Photo".

4/5

Facts:

Hero
Ben Gates, PI

Location
New York, Cleveland

Body count

4

Dames: 
Plenty of them in this one. The first one to walk on (and off) the stage is Gail Ives - "an obscure supper-club singer, at present unemployed". Then there's greedy and amoral Mrs Ringsted (she was in her early forties, and had made up her mind to stay there as long as possible), a call-girl Sandra Foote (although young, this girl had her grow), beautiful model Dorothy Terranova, "skinny" and not-so-dumb trophy wife Diane Santos. And in Cleveland, there's a prostitute Jeanette and another one whose name has escaped me. I probably forgot some other girls altogether...

Ben manages to score with not just one, but two of them!

Blackouts
One:

Simply "There was a blaze of reddish light." Regaining consciousness is a bit more elaborate: "The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the cluster of stars known as Orion. It is the only constellation I can recognize, and I don't see it often, since I seldom find myself lying on my back in a parking lot after dark."

And a half:

"... he only hit me once. I could still distinguish between light and shade, but physical objects bled into each other , and the smog was bad. I was able to walk by myself, though they insisted on helping me."
 

Title
It sounds cool, but it has nothing to do with the story. Or does it? The thing is that Dorothy is actually a model and a friend of the victim. But after her promising (and very sexy) introduction, her character is left behind completely forgotten, so I expected her to re-appear in the final twist. Something like when we all expected Seagal to show at the end of the Executive Decision, even though he had dropped from the plane an hour before. But nothing like that happens... so nice touch, Mr Terrall - you got me on this one!

Edition
Mayflower-Dell Paperback, 1965
 
Cover
Fantastic one, super cool! It depicts (with a bit of artistic freedom) a scene in which Ben meets Dorothy after her nude photoshoot. No credit is given to the illustrator, but it's the work of the great Bob McGinnis, according to Amazon's website.

Cool lines
I washed and shaved, used one of Diane's big-toothed combs on my hair and straightened my tie. There was lipstick, dirt and blood on my shirt, but there was nothing I could do about that.

"I've been humane so far," I remarked. "Please, don't stick your head out of the car, or I'll blow it off." I added, for Blick's benefit, "Bang, bang."