Wandering through some of the weird stuff I've accumulated
over the years, I just came across three novels that probably
fit into the 60s discussion. For the record they are:
Peril is My Pay by Stephen Marlowe (a Gold Medal pb published
in 1960; cost is 25 cents; the inside cover lists 9 others in
the Drum series, so perhaps this is the 10th pubbed by
Fawcett).
The Blonde Cried Murder by John Creighton (one-half of Ace
Double F-115, 1961. I suspect Creighton is a pseudonym; maybe
Crider or Jim Doherty can advise. The inside flyleaf lists 7
other Creighton novels, all Ace Doubles, D-series.) Here is
the blurb:
"If Ed Donovan ever had the world by a string, someone had
snipped it clean. His wife had skipped, his private detective
agency had slipped and he had just flipped for the bottle
[the blurb writer was into poetry, I guess]. That's why he
had to take the long-shot chance the blonde offered him. She
wanted Ed to find her missing husband, gone six months
already with a hundred grand in embezzled money. The cops
hadn't found him. The insurance men hadn't found him. But Ed
Donovan darned well [darned well?] had to find him or lose
his last chance in life. Or had he already lost that chance
the moment he took the murderous mission?"
The last item is kinda different. It's called Mark Kilby and
the Miami Mob by Robert Caine Frazer. Published by Pocket
Books (35 cents) in 1960, it's apparently third in a series
featuring the eponymous private detective. The writing is
pretty bad:
"Kilby saw the tops of her bare shoulders as he approached
the bed. The only light came in through the Venetian blinds,
the slats of which were tilted. He lifted the sheet a little.
She was naked. Raising her right eyelid, Kilby saw the
pinpoint pupil, and knew that she had been given one of the
morphia drugs.
"Stop right there, Kilby!" Kilby turned his head, saw a man
in a white shirt and pale-gray slacks. His eyes looked as if
they had been hickory-smoked. There was a gun in his
hand.
"Ah," said Kilby kindly. "Mr. Rhino, I presume?"
"That's right," Rhino said. "Just give me one reason I
shouldn't kill you right where you stand!"
I'd be willing to give one of these a shot if anyone is
interested in a report. If not, I'll try to go hunt up
something for the 70s. How about Augustus Mandrell?
Best regards,
... Reed
> On 27 February 2003, JIM DOHERTY wrote:
>
> : Considering that it's the topic of the month,
there's been very little
> : discussion about the 1960s. One point that I think
should be mentioned
> : is that the single most popular mystery sub-genre
in the '60s,
> : particularly the mid-60s, was spy
fiction.
>
> And that fed into the HB paperback original world
very nicely, with Matt
> Helm and Earl Drake and the others, and carried on
into all those other
> post-pulp men's adventure series. I always think of
Shell Scott and Chet
> Drum when I think of PBO series, but they started in
the '50s, and even
> though Drum got all around the world, he wasn't a
spy.
>
> I enjoyed the 1960s books I read this month. I'm
looking forward to some
> good stuff next month, and I hope people will pick a
book and send out
> some comments. The hardboiled stuff won't be hard to
find, but how about
> '70s noir?
>
> Bill
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 27 Feb 2003 EST