Play It Hard - Gil Brewer

He watched as she unbuttoned the flaring throat of the dress with nimble fingers, worked the zipper over her hip, then yanked the dress up over her legs. In a moment she stood before him in a black bra, black panties that were skin tight, a white garter belt, and the pink-hued nylons high on her smooth, firm, swollen thighs. "Like?" she asked softly.

Um...yeah. Me like! And there is plenty scenes like this in the pages of this neat little thriller from Gil Brewer!

Play It Hard is a perfect example of why Gil Brewer is one of my top favorite writers of mid-century noir. Books like this one move at a such a fevered pace that there is no time to slow down and realize just how far-fetched the plot is. That doesn't matter. The only thing that counts is getting to the last page and finding out who's going to end up living, dead, or trapped in some kind of existential-psycho-noir nightmare from which there is no escape.

Steve Nolan, our hero, wakes up from the depths of an alcoholic fugue to discover that the woman he just married is an impostor. She's now someone else, someone who says she's Jan Nolan, his new bride of one week, the same girl he met only two weeks before on an isolated beach on the west coast of Florida. But Steve knows she's not the same Janice Ellen Mary Lunsford that he married. She's a liar, an impostor. Problem is, no one believes him. No one claims to have seen the real Jan Nolan. It seems that Steve is suffering from a bout of amnesia brought on by a nervous breakdown of some kind. His doctor, Earl Paige, doesn't believe him. His Aunt Eda doesn't believe him, and neither does his pal, Detective Bill Rhodes. They tell him to get some rest, lay off the booze and go home to his new bride Jan Nolan. Is Steve crazy? Is he the victim of some kind of plot? And what happened to the real Janice Nolan?

Steve spends a large portion of the novel trying to retrace his steps that led up to the blackout resulting in having a stranger replacing his new bride. There are snatches of memory: a hideaway motel on the beach, a man with thick eyebrows sharing a booze-filled night, a motel manager who claims not to have seen the real Jan Nolan. There is also Steve's best gal, Claire Borroughs, the sweet girl next door who Steve dropped for a two-week engagement and marriage to a woman with no history.

And then, a body turns up. The body of a young woman tortured, raped and beaten to death. A young woman who exactly matches the description of the real Jan Nolan. Just what happened in this breakdown induced fugue-state of Steve's? Now Bill Rhodes and the other homicide detectives want to know. And who is this devil-eyed vixen in Steve's bedroom?

Giving away anymore of the plot would take the fun out of reading it for yourself. This is exactly the kind of book that polluted my young impressionable mind when I was a teenager. The sort of book that convinced you there were only two kinds of dames out there, Good ones and Bad ones. The sort of novel that writers like Brewer excelled at.

Sin Hellcat - Andrew Shaw

I saw Jodi again the other day. She's a whore now making twelve thou a year, doing quite well at it.

Nightstand Books, 1962

Unfortunately, I don't actually own the awesome paperback shown here, Instead, I got to read Sin Hellcat in a collection published by Subterranean Press titled Hellcats and Honeygirls. I started with Sin Hellcat in the collection purely because I love the title. Written by Lawrence Block and Donald E. Westlake in 1962, Sin Hellcat tells the story of a regular joe named Harvey, who runs into his old pal Jodi, years after their college days. Harvey is now a Manhattan Ad-man and Jodi is a high priced call girl. Jodi Gives Harvey a throw, on the house for old times sake. Harvey is married and lives in the suburbs with his wife Helen. Helen is one of those frigid dames who can kick on the heater in the house just by uncrossing her legs. Jodi reminds Harvey of the all the women he's had since college, and kick-starts a forgotten zest for life that has been missing since living in the 'burbs with "wifey-wife" Helen. You get the picture?

Each chapter ends on a cliffhanger as Block and Westlake wrote each other into a plot-line that the other had to reconcile with. For the reader, that means a lot of flashbacks to Harvey's conquests in the passion pits of his youth. All this while dangling a kidnapping caper that Jodi has hatched for some fast bread. Something involving a criminal on the lam in Brazil. Racy for its time, this novel is a nice example of the sort of book that truckers and traveling salesmen would have read in motels and truckstops. A neat little romp, with lots of legs and heaving breasts and plenty of caustic observations about marriage and mistresses, and the idiotic things men do to chase them. All delivered by a couple of young pros, early in their careers, writing to pay the bills.

I love tawdry little novels like this. I can't help it. I have no doubt that if I was riding the white-line in the early 60's I would have been hauling a slew of these paperbacks in my dufflebag. I would have lived on cans of Underwood Deviled Ham and stale Wonder Bread just to feed my addiction for these sorts of paperbacks. There are worse things in life, right?

This collection also includes A Girl Called Honey and So Willing. I believe you can easily order them for kindle readers now, as Lawrence Block has made them available once again for today's lusty little bookworms.

Otherwise, get yourself the Subterranean Press book, with this beautiful Glenn Orbik cover.

Subterranean Press, 2010. cover by Glenn Orbik, 2010

The Wycherly Woman - Ross MacDonald

She placed one hand on her breast. Her fingers were pale and speckled like breakfast sausages. All of her flesh was lardlike: if you poked it the hole would stay. Some of it had run like candle wax down her ankles and over her shoes.

Bantam Books

Ross MacDonald (Kenneth Millar) didn't write easy novels. I've yet to read a Lew Archer book whose plot could be described in just a few short sentences. It's like trying to tell someone the plot of Inland Empire. This novel, from 1961, about mid-point in the series, proves no different. Basically I can give you a rundown of the first half of the book just to give you an idea of the tangled thread of menace that saturates the Archer novels.

Homer Wycherly hires Archer to find his missing daughter, 21 year old Phoebe. Phoebe was last seen 2 months prior, when Homer was scheduled to leave on a transatlantic cruise. Phoebe was on the ship with him, when Catherine Wycherly (Phoebe’s mother and Homer’s ex-wife – The Wycherly Woman of the title) shows up and causes a scene. According to Homer, Phoebe left the ship with Catherine and is not seen again. Homer insists that Archer not contact Catherine Wycherly, that she is out of the family and couldn't possibly have anything to do with Phoebe's disappearance. 

Archer smells bullshit with regards to Catherine Wycherly, but promises Homer to not contact Catherine, unless the case leads to her. Archer begins by going to Boulder Beach College, where Phoebe attended classes. He meets Phoebe's landlady, Mrs. Doncaster. Mrs. Doncaster didn’t approve of Phoebe, whom she considered to be a spoiled child. Archer then talks  to Dolly Lang, Phoebe’s roommate. Dolly informs Archer that Phoebe had been seeing a boy named Bobby. She also tells Archer that Phoebe’s parents had received a set of letters from an anonymous sender spilling that Catherine Wycherly was having an affair. Dolly says that Phoebe blamed herself for the letters but didn't let on why. Homer admits to reading the letters and destroying them, telling Archer they have nothing to do with Phoebe.

Archer then goes to San Francisco, against Homer's wishes, where he tracks down Catherine Wycherly’s last known address to an abandoned, gated house. The house is empty but before Archer can explore any further he’s chased off by a gun toting tough guy. He then goes to talk to Carl and Helen Trevor. Helen is Carl’s sister. Helen tells Archer she knows nothing of Phoebe’s whereabouts, nor of Catherine Wycherly’s whereabouts. Good riddance too, Helen adds. Archer learns from Helen that Catherine had recently sold her house (the Mandeville House) by hiring a shady realtor Ben Merriman, and hasn’t been seen. Carl Trevor gives Archer recent photos of Phoebe. Archer pays a visit to Merriman’s office where he runs into Merriman’s wife, who hasn’t seen Merriman. Archer learns that Ben Merriman is the same gun-toting goon who had earlier chased him off Catherine’s property. A goateed hipster shows up demanding to see Merriman, and says that Merriman has been been messing around with his girlfriend Jessie. Mrs. Merriman kicks him out. Archer drives back to the Mandeville house and this time finds Merriman’s beaten and bloodied body inside it. Now the shit is really starting boil. He returns to Merriman’s office where he learns that Merriman fleeced the house’s owner Captain Mandeville by underselling the house to disk jocky, who in turn sold it for a large profit to Catherine Wycherly. Captain Merriman further tells Archer the he believes Catherine Wycherly has been staying at The Champion Hotel.

See what I mean by plot? But we ain't done yet!

The Champion Hotel is a dump. Archer discovers that Catherine Wycherly has been staying there until just the previous night, when she departed suddenly with another unidentified man. He investigates Catherine’s room and see’s Phoebe’s name scrawled on a dusty window. He bribes the bellman and learns that Catherine left with another man for a place called the Hacienda Inn. He also learns that Catherine had a visitor who she fought frequently fought with. The bellman identifies Ben Merriman from picture Archer shows him. Archer then shows him a picture of Phoebe, but the bellman can't admit to having ever seen her. 

So, Archer goes to the Hacienda Inn where he finds a drunken Catherine in the lobby bar. Catherine strikes up a conversation with Archer and Archer plays along. Then Catherine notices Archer’s gun and tries to hire him to kill Ben Merriman. The two of them go back to her casita where she puts the move on Archer. Instead of reciprocating, Archer rebuff's her advances. Sullen and bitter, she passes out drunk. Archer revives her and tries to learn where Phoebe is. She doesn’t know and doesn’t seem to care, and she denies wanting to have Ben Merriman killed. Archer leaves the room and is jumped by a goon wielding a tire iron. 

All of these events have only brought us to the halfway point of the novel. That Ross MacDonald can lay down a plot like this, over and over almost entirely through dialog, while keeping the pace both suspenseful and readable, is testament to his skill as a novelist. MacDonald is often compared to Raymond Chandler (who isn't?) and Dashiell Hammett, but outside of California as a setting their novels, there really is no comparison. MacDonald's books, especially from the late 50s on, are much deeper and better structured. The decay of the family through past sins is the common theme of the novels, Bad guys and murder are only side ingredients to the inevitable fall of innocence through hubris and corruption. Sounds all English major, doesn't it?

All My Lovers - Alan Marshall (Donald E. Westlake)

She didn't move, didn't cry out, didn't even stiffen. He swung the belt again, pleased by the smacking sound of the leather hitting her skin, and still she didn't move. His arm worked back and forth, and the belt whipped away and cracked against her skin, whipped away again and sliced back. "Scream, dammit," he said, his voice low and tense. "Scream."

1961, Midwood (Tower) Publications

The cover indicates this novel is "The Bizarre Story of a Marriage Made in Hell!" and, brothers and sisters, it ain't kidding! I had no idea when I picked this book up that it was written by Donald Westlake. I grabbed it because it's a Midwood paperback and I usually pick up Midwood books if they're in decent enough shape and the price is reasonable. Reading it I was mildly impressed by how well written it was for a "sleazy" little page-turner. That was before I learned Westlake had written it. Then it was a big "no duh!" moment for me.

We first meet the novel's heroine Lou, short for Eloise, at a party in Greenwich Village. The scene is abuzz and the crowd is high, as Lou sits on a sofa waiting for her boyfriend, Jeffrey, to return with their drinks. While waiting, Lou is fending off another drunk putting the make on her. She decides that she's too old for this phony Greenwich Village bullshit and talks Jeffrey into taking her back to his pad, which we soon discover, she pays the rent on. Wild sex ensues...Midwood style!

Meanwhile, Martin is waiting for his wife to return home from her latest fling. He's a 30-something year old successful finance guy with a spread overlooking Central Park. Basically a real dick. He passes the time abusing, torturing and raping his young Puerto Rican housekeeper, whom he insists on calling Roxanne. And with this we're introduced to the lovely couple Lou and Martin, and their fucked up marriage.

Later in the novel we learn that Lou and Martin's trouble started on their wedding night, when Lou made the big mistake of telling Martin that she wasn't a virgin. Not just one or two guys either, but lots of guys, from high school and on through college. Martin, a guy with serious "mommy" issues doesn't take this news about his new bride too well. Especially since he's still a virgin. It's all too much for him to deal with, How could Mommy do this to him? He has a meltdown and leaves her alone in their hotel room. On the way out of the lobby he tells the bellman that there is a woman ready and waiting for some action up in his hotel room. And there you have their marriage in a nutshell.

For reasons never clear, divorce is out of the question. Martin insists that Lou remain his wife, no matter how many lovers and gigolos she hooks up with. For his part, he's happy beating and raping helpless women and prostitutes, and paying them off for their participation.

Soon enough, Jeffrey has had enough of Lou and her fucked up marriage to Martin. He kicks Martin's ass and bolts out of her life, back to the Village and back on the hunt for his next sugar momma. Meanwhile Lou pines away for her lost love, Sebastian (nicknamed Bastard!) to return which, as things in novels must follow, he does.

From there on out it's Bastard and Lou, Martin and prostitutes, hot sex, whippings, hot sex, beatings and more hot sex culminating in a final betrayal that I didn't see coming.

So, good old stuff from the early days of a terrific writer. Thanks Midwood!

The Butcher #35 Gotham Gore - Stuart Jason

"You--you--" he couldn't finish. She was already coiling into him, her long legs outflung. Almost grimly, he took her. One last violent, thrusting, throbbing entrance. She gurgled in joy in that low husky voice of hers. He hammered back at her, gently but firmly. Waves of passion washed over them both again. The release this time was a bubbling, loose ride down a long sweet hill. 

Pinnacle Books, July 1982 - cover by Earl Norem

Okay then, looks like The Butcher has got things well in hand, in this, his 35th and final, adventure. Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil any endings here. In fact, I had no idea this was the last novel in the series when I picked it up. I wonder if maybe Michael Avallone knew this was it for the Butcher when he wrote it. I had a hunch, while reading it, that he did. A couple of times in the novel he name drops a certain private eye named Ed Noon, a pal of The Butcher's. He also name-drops James Reasoner and Harry Whittington, two writers whose work I really enjoy. Anyway...

As far as adventures go, this one is a pretty cool one. It's got a "secret hideout of Satanic witchery" run by a nut by the name of Michael Franklin Unzer (referred to throughout as Mfu) and his partner Baron Friedrich Von Zapp, a former SS goon who utters hein all the time. Hanging out with Von Zapp is a Russian-French babe named Ilga Mornay.

She might have stepped out of an old Joan Crawford movie...Her face was triangular, with flaring nostrils, a thick-lipped sullen mouth and those cat eyes set in a mask whose skin was pure alabaster. Her jet-black hair was worn Cleopatra-style--the bangs bit.

Want to lay odds that Bucher and Ilga will be throwing down? Of course they do! Ilga is one of those icy-hot babes that likes to torture men with her overwhelming animal magnetism and, needless to say, she's got Bucher lined up in her sights...but wait! Also in the plot is a frigid red-haired dish named Frances Fern. You know, the kind of gal who has been waiting for a guy like Bucher to come along and take her all caveman style, thereby awakening the she-beast within...and all that stuff.

The whole caper involves this Mfu cat who has settled in Lake Placid to run his Satanic cult and mumbo-jumbo and what-not. There is rumor that his cult is also a front for human smuggling. Not really something that White Hat (Bucher's organization) would bother with. Except that White Hat has learned that the Syndicate might be bankrolling Mfu's game, which involves weapon smuggling and a terrorist plot against Manhattan. It's also assumed that Mfu is likely a former SS official who has resurfaced after escaping into South America years before. Man, I got to tell you, this is the kind recipe a dork like me can't resist!

Bucher rolls into Lake Placid with his guns and exploding chewing gum...yes, his exploding chewing gum! and immediately discovers a cache of hand-grenades hidden in a produce delivery truck. He dispatches said truck and its contents with a wad of exploding chewing gum, and immediately comes under the scrutiny of Baron Von Zapp, thanks to a one-eyed, one-armed chopper pilot who had been monitoring the delivery of hand-grenades from the sky. Vonn Zapp contacts Bucher, who is using the alias Dix Hernan while staying in town. Von Zapp offers Bucher (as Dix Hernan) a job with Mfu but first he wants to know who sent Hernan into to screw up the shipment of grenades. If Bucher's story isn't good enough then it's the Big Sleep for him. Bucher offers up a name from a rival outfit, in the hopes that Mfu will believe that the Syndicate is setting him up for a betrayal of sorts. It really doesn't matter, because Bucher has got Ilga to screw first. Ilga sets herself up as some kind of over-sexed vixen, but when push comes to pushin' real good, Bucher discovers that she's a bum lay who has never had an orgasm before. Until he's come along, that is.

Meanwhile, Bucher has noticed Frances Fern, the redheaded chick with the Gloria Steinem glasses. Seems that she's the town librarian and has some kind of connection to Mfu. Is she a "damsel in distress? or a Devil Girl?" Well, that's Bucher's job to find out. That and killing some goons and getting into Mfu's lair and blowing shit up with his explosive chewing gum and fending off the advances of Ilga Mornay while deflowering Frances Fern. It's all shoot first, aim later kind of stuff...but I liked it the whole way.

Yes, it's a pulpy blast of fun, and probably a decent sendoff for the series. I've got a few others in my collection that I'll be getting to eventually.

Lone Star and the Denver Madam by Wesley Ellis

She stood with her legs pressed together, hands locked demurely below her navel. The posture gave her a shy-little-girl look--it also bowed her shoulders and let the narrow straps of the garment slide down her arms. The pale fabric hung precariously on the points of her breasts, boldly baring the rosy tops of her nipples. If she moved now, risked even half a breath...

Jove Books, August 1983

Well howdy, Ma'am! Yes, this is none other than Jessie Starbuck doing what she does best, tantalizing another hombre in the 13th Lone Star adventure Lone Star and the Denver Madam. I have to thank Thomas McNulty and his enjoyable blog for introducing me to the erotic adventures of Jessie and her pal Ki as they fight crime and ne'er-do-wells in the wild west. I've seen these books for years in used book stores but haven't given one a ride until just this past December. There are a few hundred of titles to choose from in the series, but I wanted to find something from as close to the beginning as I could, hence number 13 getting the spotlight here.

As plots go, it's all really straightforward. Jessie Starbuck is a wealthy heiress whose old man was murdered by a nefarious cartel of anonymous rich and powerful SOBs seeking to rule the world, or something like that. Since this is the 13th book in the series, we're supposed to know the deal here, so not a whole lot is explained about this cartel other than they're Prussian. It doesn't really matter, because right away we're in the big city of Denver as Jessie and Ki, her half-Japanese martial artist companion, arrive to investigate the mysterious death of one of Jessie's childhood friends named Lynnie. Lynnie had recently popped up after years of being missing and presumed dead under the new name of Marie D'Avenant "famed French beauty" and fiance of U.S. Senator Marcus Hall. Jessie has recently received a desperate telegraph from Lynnie (AKA Marie D'Avenant) pleading for Jessie's help. Trouble is that Marie D'Avenant mysteriously dies before Jessie and Ki can come to Denver to help her.

As far as everyone in Denver is concerned, Marie D'Avenant died tragically of natural causes by a sudden heart attack in her sleep, brought on by years of wild living in gay Paree. Only Jessie and Ki ain't buying that load of horse manure for one second! Jessie is convinced that her old friend Lynnie was murdered, and most likely by the same cartel who murdered her father.

As we follow Jessie and Ki mixing with the upper crust society of Denver we run into a passel of suspects and plenty of horny hi-jinx to boot! First off, Ki hooks up with a spunky girl-reporter Annie McCullough, who is so hot for action that the slightest erotic touch of a man like Ki sends her into fits of orgasms, from which she passes out before the act of sex is actually culminated. Ki then hooks up with the hot Amanda van Rijn, the young wife of rich and powerful old Charles van Rijn, Ki and Amanda only know each other for a few hours before they're knocking boots behind old Charles van Rijn's back. It's okay, Amanda tells Ki, because ol' Charles hasn't been able to get lead in his pencil in years!

And don't worry about Jessie missing out in all the fun. She's been having run-ins with Senator Marcus Hall. Sparks fly and spurs jangle, and...well you know what happens next!

In the midst of all the action in the boudoirs there is plenty of action going on outside as well. Jessie and Ki are in Denver only a day before attempts on their lives commence. There are also some strange goings on among the society folk and their young wives to make Jessie and Ki plenty suspicious of everyone and anyone. It all culminates in an appropriately pulp-worthy showdown in a castle in the mountains, complete with a "mad doctor" of sorts and his sadistic henchmen.

I enjoyed the book and will likely read more of Jessie's and Ki's adventures. The books themselves seem plenty easy to find, and I understand there are several tie-ins with the Longarm series.

Pattern for Panic - Richard S. Prather

In less than thirty seconds a cute little gal came in: mine. She was at most a couple of inches over five feet tall, which is a foot shorter than I am, but she had as many dangerous curves as the road to Acapulco. The curves were distributed on a foundation which couldn't quite be called plump, but would never get her a job in the States as a high-fashion model. Which was fine with me. She was dressed in a snug-fitting green satin housecoat, and high-heeled pumps. I guessed her age at maybe twenty, and like many Mexican women she had, in addition to those other dandy things, a healthy mass of black hair and hot dark eyes. 

Fawcett Gold Medal, 1961

Yup, that's our pal Shell Scott, Private Eye on the road to Acapulco by way of a cutie in a house of ill-repute. Exactly how he got there makes for one of the more entertaining vintage private eye novels I've read in a long while.

One can always rely on Richard S. Prather to deliver a breezy, sex and violence filled caper, and Pattern For Panic is no exception. First published in 1954 and later revised for publication in 1961 this is classic Shell Scott. This time he's down in Mexico City, in way over his head with bad guys and dangerous dames thanks to a blackmail plot that leads to a kidnapped scientist, a crooked cop, a bevy of communist spies and a kinky communist ringmaster who gets his kicks from torture.

This novel pretty much covers the bases if you're looking for some dandy pulp action to fill a rainy weekend. Shell is in Mexico City staying at the Hotel del Prado, on a little R 'n R with his local Mexican pal Amador Montalba, when he meets fellow Americans, Dr. Jerrold Buffington, his daughter Buff (yes, I pictured Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buff) and their traveling companion Monique Durand. Monique and Buff are a classic pair of bookend babes, one dark and sultry (Monique) and the other (Buff) blond and girl-next-door. The good doctor Buffington is in town to deliver a lecture on some latest medical research he's doing. They're all enjoying cocktails in the hotel Bar Nicte-Ha when a sleazy ladykiller starts laying some unwanted attention on Buff. Shell Scott decides enough is enough and offers the creep a choice of keeping all his teeth by leaving the bar, or staying and dining on a knuckle sandwich. The creep takes the hint and leaves. Moments later, a cigarette girl whom Shell Scott has had a randy eye on, delivers a note from the creep to Buff, laying out in explicate detail just what the creep would like to do with Buff as soon as her gringo boyfriend splits the scene. Well, that's all it takes for Shell Scott, knight errant to decide that our Latin Lover needs a good old fashioned ass-whipping. Fists fly, teeth rattle and in no time flat, Shell is jumped by a handful of Mexico City cops who seemed to have arrived at an awfully convenient time. He manages to knock a couple of teeth out of one over-zealous cop before getting hauled off to the clink for fighting and having in his possession a pack of marijuana cigarettes, The same pack that Scott had earlier purchased from the cigarette girl. And sure enough, the creep who started the whole thing has disappeared.

Cooling his heels in jail, Shell figures he's in for a long night, when his pal Amador shows up to offer him a job for a Countess Lopez. It seems the Countess has enough pull, thanks to her husband General Lopez, to spring Shell Scott from jail, as long as he does her a little favor in return. The Countess is being blackmailed for a set of provocative photographs and a dirty film of her in action with a secret lover. The Countess would like the film and pix returned to her toot-sweet without her husband, General Lopez, ever finding out. Because, man, if the General finds out about this film of his wife with another man...!Ay Chihuahua!  (Yes, they actually utter that expression in this book!)

Scott eagerly takes the case and barely an hour goes by before he discovers that Doctor Buffington and his daughter Buff have been kidnapped. Shell learns that Buffington had accidentally discovered a nerve agent that, in the slightest doses, could literally send its victim into fits of deadly terror. It seems that certain enemies of the free world would like to get their hands on this nerve agent. Scott also learns that General Lopez has been the target of communist spies that are trying to gain power through nefarious means in Mexico City. Could the blackmail, and the kidnapping, and Scott's frame-up job all be linked? You bet your burrito they could! And all this leads to some hard-boiled hi-jinx that keeps Shell busy for the next 150 pages!

If you haven't read a Shell Scott novel before, then do yourself a favor and grab one. They're probably easy enough to get if you look in the used bookstores. If not, many are available for e-readers. Just know going in that you're in for some campy doses of sexist humor along with your bullets and bad guys.