I decided to re-read a few books that I didn't remember too
well. The first was Charles Runyon's The Prettiest Girl I
Ever Killed, from 1965. James mentioned that small towns in
fiction have secrets. Well, the one in this book has a serial
killer. Over the years there've been a number of deaths, all
of them appearing accidental. They weren't. Two sections of
the book are narrated by the killer. The rest of the story is
told by a woman who lives in the town. This is a well-written
story, but maybe not hardboiled.
Then there's Ride the Gold Mare (1957) by Ovid Demaris.
Didn't someone say that life in the early Middle Ages
was
"nasty, brutish, and short"? That's a pretty good description
of this book. Too much jive talking, maybe. Some brutal drug
scenes. A great scene where a crooked cop puts a gun in a
guy's mouth and pulls the trigger: "For an instant the gun
lighted up Lopez's face like a pumpkin, making a muffled,
swishing sound. Then the slug was ricocheting with a ping,
ping off the brick wall." It's not as tough as Demaris wanted
it to be because he (or the editor) is forced to have
characters say, "Don't crap me" and "Love your mother!"
Demaris was good.
It's probably hard for anybody these days to see the appeal
of a title like Richard Wormser's Drive East on 66 (1961),
but I'm old enough to remember the romance of that road and
of highways that went right through the small towns instead
of by-passing them. This one's about a cop hired to take a
big-shot's kid to a place where he can get treatment. Things
happen along the way. Wormser was medium tough, and he knew
plenty about telling a good story.
Edward S. Aarons wrote a lot of books about Sam Durell, one
of which was Assignment: Maria Tirana (1960). An American
astronaught is down behind the Iron Curtain. He happens to be
engaged to Deirdre, Sam's longtime lover. There's a brutal
spy named Hammett, and plenty of complications in what you
might think is going to be a pretty straightforward story.
Aarons was always good on local color. The pacing is good,
too, and I'd call it hardboiled all the way, if a little
sentimental.
Bill Crider
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