Review: Remembered Sin

Remembered Sin by Harry Whittington
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

One of Whittington’s fabled “missing 38”, this one is a sleazed up nurse romance telling the story of horny young nurse Lenora who decides to take in her down-and-out former lover and his nympho and psychotic wife into her home. This greatly displeases her crippled aunt housemate, and her current lover – the jealous Dr. Whalen. The psycho wife is nasty and delusional enough to keep her set pieces mostly entertaining and arguably the highlight of the book. Pretty decent plot with several secondary characters and a few somewhat steamy R-rated trysts. Solid writing and nicely paced so readable without having to skim, like so many other sleazers. The sex scenes are fairly innocuous and brief so don’t expect to get aroused. Can’t recommend it, although okay for the Whittington completists, and another addition to this blog’s “missing 38” reviews. I give it two stars.

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Review: Nita's Place

Nita's Place by Harry Whittington
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In the judge a book by its cover category, this 1960 first edition cover art is in the same vein as a lot of the Orrie Hitt sleaze books published around that time. Whereas the 1964 second edition has cover art similar to the Gold Medal crime/noir books. So this tough to categorize novel was marketed at different times to different audiences. Interestingly, although this Whittington doesn't quite succeed as either sleaze or noir, if it were sexed up a bit it would track well with the books he wrote for Greenleaf/Corinth in the mid-1960s. The storyline has 44-year-old Jay Wagner, fresh off a couple of heart attacks and a you-could-drop-dead-at-any-time prognosis, taking up residence at a Florida motel to enjoy the sun and bikini-views until he drops dead as the doctors say he will. The motel is run by Nita (good girl) and her sister Callie (slut) and after a period of bikini gazing Jay pleases them both. And then there's Rita, Elsie, and Betty. Jay is your typical sleaze novel protagonist getting plenty of action. The novel, however, is full of espionage overtones with a nearby missile base, airmen and scientists around the pool, and rumors that the motel is under government surveillance. Also plenty of noir subplots via Jay's nefarious history, Nita's and Callie's mob connections, and all three of them are fleeing past lives they can't escape. The problem is that Whittington never quite decided on which kind of novel—sleaze, spy, noir—this would be, and the result is that it succeeds at none of them. Toss in a lot of clunky head-hopping from the point of view, and dialogue that is frequently too on the nose, and this is not one of Whittington's best. That said, I still mostly enjoyed this one because it always seemed to be about to explode. Whittington had plenty to work with here but never quite pulled it off.

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Review: Flesh Curse

Flesh Curse by Harry Whittington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's because there are still great lost noirs waiting to be found that I wade through the vintage sleaze stacks. It's one thing to know that this 1964 John Dexter is one of the famed "missing 38" that Harry Whittington wrote for Greenleaf imprints between 1964 and 1967, and another thing to actually read this blistering noir and realize it's as good or better than most of the crime noir novels he placed with mainstream publishers such as Ace, Avon, and Fawcett Gold Medal. Larry Burgess and his twin Curt are heading to California on a train from Baltimore to visit their wealthy grandfather. Not so innocent a journey, however, as Larry has wracked up $30,000 in gambling debts he can't pay and has welched and is on the run. His brother knows he's in trouble but not to what extent. Without giving too much of the plot away, the mob is on Larry's trail and we find out just how far he will go to survive. What elevates this one is the first person narration from Larry's point of view. Frequently bad guy narrators are the heroes of their own tale. They don't see themselves from society's perspective, don't see themselves as evil. They are motivated to get what they want just like everyone else. Larry doesn't see himself as a hero. He knows he's a welch, thief, liar, and all around loser. He berates himself for being such a loser and simmers in his broth of self-loathing. And yet, that doesn't cause him to change, or slow down one bit his attempt to escape, no matter whom he hurts. The narration hurtles along equally fueled by obsession and paranoia, much like a Cornell Woolrich novel, until the pressure can't be contained. I think this is another example of how writing for a sleaze publisher freed Whittington to hold nothing back because he didn't have to fit Larry Burgess into a mainstream template. We are used to this type of narration in contemporary noir and dark fiction, but it was rare in the 1950s and 1960s, which is one of the reason that these old crime noirs are so prized.

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Review: Desire in the Dust

Desire in the Dust by Harry Whittington
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The characters are all stock and by the time they are introduced in the first few chapters you will already know what is going to happen. I read on in the hope of being surprised in the way that so many of these Gold Medal books do with plot twists and off-the-rails character behavior. Unfortunately, that did not happen in this one. Everything I thought would happen did, including the big reveal that was guessed at back on about page 10. In the meantime I had to endure long stretches of expository dialog. The characters are well-drawn and the plot nicely ordered, but this is all so familiar and predictable. First published in 1956, so maybe it gets a pass because reading it now, after several generations of TV and movies have followed this formula, I shouldn't be surprised that it seems familiar. However, this one is completely formulaic in a way that is unlike most of Whittington's other novels.

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Review: Any Woman He Wanted

Any Woman He Wanted by Harry Whittington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Although this was published by Beacon in 1960 as a sleaze novel, it was originally written by Whittington as sequel to Brute in Brass, which was published by Fawcett Gold Medal. Whittington intended Mike Ballard as a series character but Gold Medal rejected this sequel. The hilarious thing is that anyone buying this based on the cover thinking that they were getting a story about a guy making time with four women was seriously disappointed. There is not so much as a kiss in the entire book. Hard to understand Gold Medal's rejection because this is just about the equal to Brute in Brass. The primary difference is that Any Woman He Wanted is not a noir. It is just a straight ahead crime novel. The novel starts with Ballard, now a homicide detective showing up at the scene of a robbery. A nice set-piece scene that establishes character via action. After that things slow down a bit with Ballard's back story, both pre- and post-Brute in Brass. So we learn more about his history, and for those who have read Brute, we find out what happened after that novel ended. It is now four years later and Ballard is a clean, but hobbled, cop. Enter new plot complications. He meets with the DA, who tries to hire him as a special investigator. Ballard knows that is death warrant and refuses. Next day the DA is dead and it is game on. The rest of the novel tracks Ballard as he battles it out with the new criminals who run the town.

280Steps has re-released this one as an eBook and it is also available in a Stark House edition along with A Night for Screaming.

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Review: 69 Babylon Park

69 Babylon Park by Harry Whittington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This 1962 Whittington novel is not as sleazy as the front and back covers suggest. Instead it is psychological realism set in married student housing at a trailer park and it reminded me quite a bit of Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road which had been published a year earlier. The beginning also has a bit of a David Goodis vibe as it reminds me of the beginning of The Wounded and the Slain. There's also a passage where protagonist Phil overhears students talking about his car-hop wife May that made me think of Raymond Carver's story "They're Not Your Husband" from Will You Please Be Quiet, Please. In that story a husband overhears guys in a diner making unflatteringly comments about his waitress wife. And in the same vein as those other works, 69 Babylon Park is a literary styled novel about a marriage disintegrating under the weight of expectations. The dialog got a bit long in places but there are some really choice scenes of confrontation and humiliation. If it hadn't been marketed as pulp I could see this Whittington rubbing elbows with the books by Yates and Carver.

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Review: Longarm on the Humboldt

Longarm on the Humboldt by Harry Whittington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Longarm novels, and Adult Westerns in general, don’t seem to get much respect even though they were written by talented work-for-hire authors like Lou Cameron, Frank Roderus, James Reasoner, Pete Brandvold, and of course Harry Whittington who wrote this one, the 28th book in the series. Whittington would go on to write five more Longarm novels over the next couple of years, and although I have all of them, this is the first one that I’ve read. Whittington’s take on US Marshall Custis Long clearly pegs him as a hard-boiled detective, and the familiar tropes are here, getting beat up, captured, escaping, getting laid, etc. The story consists of two investigations, an assignment from the US Government, and another at the behest of a beautiful young blind woman who is seeking revenge. Some may say that Whittingtons best days were behind him in the 1970s, but I don’t think that's true. His descriptive prose is elegant without being wordy, the dialog crackles with authenticity and humor, and the plotting is, not surprisingly, exceptional. There is a Mormon subplot, which was entertaining enough, that smelled of padding that could have easily been cut to really make this a taut 200 pager, but only a minor quibble. Four stars.

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Review: The Sin Fishers

The Sin Fishers by Harry Whittington
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another of the "missing 38" vintage sleaze novels that Harry Whittington wrote in the mid-60s under a pseudonym for the Greenleaf/Corinth publishing house, this time as John Dexter. Quite an interesting novel because although it has a crime element - a gambler/gangster and his muscle are tracking and intending to kill his ex-mistress who ratted him out to the IRS - this is much more of a psychological noir. Rafe Fuller seems our focal character at the start as we begin with him following his wife's funeral and he makes all the classic mistakes noir characters fated to doom make, except for a spoiler I won't give away. Whittington, however, jumps the narration around between several characters so that we are continuously enmeshed in different psycho dramas. Characters reacting to their obsessions is what drives the plot and the focus is on the interpersonal drama rather than the action sequences more typical of this era's crime/noir genre. Although published by a sleaze house, the sex scenes are minimal and tame even by 1965 standards, so would imagine that some readers back then were disappointed. All in all, not bad, but there was a lot of repetition, as Whittington was obviously trying to stretch out the word count to fit the 190-page Greenleaf format. If you are a Whittington completist, like me, you'll want to read this, but otherwise you can probably stick to his readily available Gold Medal paperbacks that are much better.

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Review: Saddle Sinners

Saddle Sinners by Harry Whittington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of Whittington's famed missing 38! Objectively, Whittington's novels published in the 1960s by mainstream publishers such as Fawcett Gold Medal, Avon, Ace, etc. are more conventionally plotted and the writing is more polished. What they lack, however, is everything that you will find in this Greenleaf/Corinth sleaze noir, which is narration that is relentlessly edgy and full of inside voice. The YA Twilight series has more sex than this one and yet these early 1960s publishers were hounded and eventually jailed for publishing novels such as this. As I've written before when reviewing other Whittington sleazers, this genre, and the anonymity of writing for Greenleaf, freed him to write brutally honest crime/noir novels that he couldn't publish with those mainstream publishers. Although tame by comparison with what is published now, this 1964 novel shows what Gold Medal novels would have been like if there had been no censorship. I'm giving it five stars because I loved it, but also because Whittington broke the molds and gave us a crime noir we wouldn't have had otherwise. He was one of the few writers who took his sleaze assignments seriously. And it shows. Block and Westlake were great writers, but read their sleazers and it is obvious that most of the time they were taking the piss. Not Whittington. Back then he did what noir writers do now, he made it dirty. So what do we have in Saddle Sinners? A gigolo drama at a dude ranch, plus a hostage scenario and a heist, and a frigid wife awakened. Plus plenty of inside voice narration to show how F'd up all the characters are. Highly collectible, so it won't be cheap, but it is well worth the price if you can find a copy.

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Review: Hell Bait

Hell Bait by Harry Whittington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of Harry Whittington's famed "missing 38" sleaze novels published by Corinth (Greenleaf) in the mid-1960s when he was on a one book per month contract. Many of those novels hid a crime/noir story in between the sex scenes, which is the case with Hell Bait. Crime/noir with sex scenes. Yes, we have plenty of that now. But one of the reasons the missing 38 are famous is that you couldn't do that back then (unless you went the sleaze route). Gold Medal paperback with explicit sex scenes? No way. Now imagine one of Whittington's Gold Medal paperbacks with those sex scenes. What would you have? Something just like Hell Bait. The crime/noir plot is that Steve Burnette is trying to find out who murdered his brother. However, he's too busy getting laid to do much detective work. I would have liked more investigating, so that's the negative. Loved all the gritty psychological trappings: the biting introspection, the psychological warfare between characters. A brutally raw and honest layer that Gold Medal wouldn't have touched. Hard to find and expensive, but worth it for collectors.

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Review: A Night for Screaming

A Night for Screaming by Harry Whittington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Holy habanero! Reached the point where I couldn't put this one down and had to sneak off somewhere for a couple of hours so I could finish it without being interrupted. Mitch Walker, our noir protagonist, is an ex-cop accused of murder. He can't prove his innocence and is afraid to be interrogated by his sadistic ex-partner who always gets the confession (scalding hot enemas is one of the proven torture techniques that has Mitch on the lam). We pick up the story with Mitch having hopped off a freight train in Kansas and he is quickly in hiding from the local police and his ex-partner. He "escapes" to Great Plains Empire Farm, which is staffed by prison labor and "employed" laborers who might as well be prisoners. Mitch almost immediately realizes he's made a mistake agreeing to take a job at the farm and begins plotting his escape. From that point on Whittington just keeps putting Mitch into more and more trouble and the plot surprises keep coming right up to the ending pages. Just a great fast-paced fun read and a noir thriller that completely delivers.

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Review: Lust Dupe

Lust Dupe by Harry Whittington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of the famed "missing 38" vintage sleaze novels by Harry Whittington. To my sensibilities this is also a lost and waiting to be re-discovered noir masterpiece. Although different in style, it is on par with the best of Whittington's Gold Medal published noirs. There's plenty of action, but what drives this story is the inner turmoil, the "inside voice" of the noir characters. Jim Harper is a bank teller in a small mid-western town who is dying on the inside because of the future he imagines. Into the bank walks Nora "you look like you were made out of hundred dollar bills" Bayer. Jim's a goner. After she spends eight days decking and wrecking him he will do anything she wants. Cue the bank robbery, where a guard is killed and Jim is taken hostage by Nora and her two accomplices. The rest of the novel is delicious disintegration. Noir never offers a way out. The only question is how will these lives shatter and what damage will the shrapnel cause. This was written early in Whittington's run of 38 novels for Greenleaf/Corinth, before he was burnt out by the one novel per month pace, and it still has all the character development, plotting, and action that he put into his "mainstream" crime/noir novels. My sense is that perhaps, at least when he wrote this one, that he also felt freed by writing for the vintage sleaze market: he could give voice to these characters in a way that wouldn't pass the editorial gatekeepers at Fawcett. That's how it reads to me, anyway. Awesome noir. Tough to find, but well worth tracking down.

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Review: A Ticket to Hell

A Ticket to Hell by Harry Whittington
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Couldn't quite bring myself to give this only one-star because there are some great scenes and the early chapters are full of promise and tension, but the rest of it annoyed me to no end, so, yes, this is a ticket to hell. Driving a low-slung Porsche off-road through the pines and boulders of a desert canyon? Makes you wonder if Whittington had ever seen a Porsche or a desert canyon, right? I love most everything I've read of Whittington's but this one's a clunker. After the great start, Whittington went into sit and spin mode, with repetitive teasing exposition suggesting just wait, wait, wait, there will eventually be something worth waiting for. Couldn't have been all of the empty dialog between Ric and Eve, could it? No, not that. Ends with some action scenes but I really didn't care any more at that point. The plot would make a good movie, but the screenwriter would need to ditch just about everything else. Both the Gold Medal originals and the Black Lizard reprints are easy to find in paperback, and there's an eBook version from 28o Steps, so give it a go if you must.

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Review: A Haven for the Damned

A Haven for the Damned by Harry Whittington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Stark House has re-released this long out of print Whittington classic. It has one of my favorite crime/noir/mystery setups: a group of people all stuck in a place - in this case an abandoned hotel - where the interactions between the characters is as much fun as the plot. A Haven for the Damned begins with a bank robbery, and the robbers are among the eight people who converge on Lust, a New Mexico ghost town. In the first part of the novel the point of view shifts around to introduce us to all of the characters and show the plot point that is driving them towards Lust. For the rest of the novel it is character warfare with the bank robbers trying to find a way out before the police arrive and all the other characters trying to survive the ordeal. I'd give this five stars for the first three-quarters of the novel, but thought it fell off before the end, descending (literally into a tunnel) with some melodramatic romance.

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Review: Backwoods Tramp

Backwoods Tramp by Harry Whittington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Slam-dunk, top-tier, classic that needs to be on your crime-noir reading list. Whittington's prose style is literary in the best sense: character-driven, nuanced, with lush concrete descriptions and absent cliche's and short-cuts. And yet he gives up none of the genre's plotting and pacing. The narrator is conflicted and driven. The villain is sublime. The femme-fatale, despite the title, is no tramp. So many of the scenes are riveting page-turners, especially the scenes with the three of them together. Was this never made into a movie? How is that possible? Loved everything about this one.

Review: Like Mink Like Murder

Like Mink Like Murder by Harry Whittington

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sammy decides to go straight after being in prison for four years for robbery after being enticed by Elva, who he is totally obsessed with, and her partner in crime Collie. He has a good job as a milkman and a steady girl when Elva shows up to tempt him back into a life of crime. A relentless cop shadowing him and a disapproving future father-in-law push him either further. An everyman, sexual obsession, a fem fatale or two, and a psychopath are common ingredients in Whittington’s crime/noir novels and this is another fine example of his work. The dialog practically pops off the page, like you’re watching a movie, and the plot screams at a breakneck pace. Yet another terrific novel from a very dependable author.

Available as ebook and paperback from Stark House Press

Review: To Find Cora

To Find Cora by Harry Whittington

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After sultry wife Cora walks out on him again, Joe is obsessed with finding her and gets a lot more that he bargained for. Whittington excelled at stories about ordinary guys getting involved with psychopaths and fem fatales and here Joe gets snared with a brutal and paranoid drunk named Hall and his partner Viola, a sexy and ruthless dish, who have been hiding out in a remote farmhouse until the heat dies down from Hall’s embezzlement. The first person narrative is heavily dialog driven and it absolutely crackles with aggression, hatred, and delusional aspirations. I loved the way that Whittington took a simple plot and embellished it by injecting some unexpected characters and some pretty outrageous twists that I didn’t see coming. Another top notch story from a master of the crime-noir genre. Recommended.

Available as ebook and paperback from Stark House Press

Review: A Trap for Sam Dodge

A Trap for Sam Dodge by Harry Whittington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sheriff Miles Ringo is gunned down and Sam Dodge comes back to town to find the killer of his old friend. Turns out that Sam and Ringo were once competing for the same girl and the same job, and Sam lost on both counts, inspiring him to leave town to start a ranch.  Sam Dodge has a plan to draw out the killer but ends up creating a trap for himself. Courtroom drama ensues with a nice twist and an unexpected ally. Whittington delivers another propulsive crime thriller with Sam Dodge acting as the detective and protagonist. Sam’s relationship with the steadfast doctor and the soiled dove’s daughter were a couple of highlights for me. Recommended.

Review: The Searching Rider

The Searching Rider by Harry Whittington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A farmer named Kraylor mounts a lone, suicidal revenge mission against a trio of outlaws that murdered his young son. His wife Hetty implores old flame Matt Logan to go after Kraylor before he gets himself killed. This revenge novella is a razor sharp page-turner set amongst the backdrop of a compelling love triangle. Matt Logan is seriously conflicted. Letting Kraylor die would leave Hetty to himself, and of courser Kraylor wants no help from his wife’s former flame. This emotional turmoil propels a fairly standard revenge plot into something transcendental. The action-packed climax is a highlight as well. Recommended.

I don't see this Ace Double half being reprinted anytime soon so I created ebooks from scanned images that I found online in the name of digital preservation. Download them here:

EPUB - The Searching Rider - Harry Whittington.epub
MOBI - The Searching Rider - Harry Whittington.mobi

Harry Whittington Movie Tie-Ins - Ebooks

Harry Whittington wrote a couple of movie tie-ins that I'm aware of - "Charro!" and "Temptations of Valerie". I created ebooks of both of these from scans that I found online. I'm pretty sure that the movie studios that own the rights to these are not interested in them ever being reprinted, so here they are. In the name of preservation. Enjoy!

Charro! by Harry Whittington - EPUB
Charro! by Harry Whittington - MOBI

Temptations of Valerie by Harry Whittington - EPUB
Temptations of Valerie by Harry Whittington - MOBI

Writer Paul Bishop has a terrific post on his blog regarding Charro! and the eye-catching Ron Lesser cover art called Wandering Down The Rabbit Hole that I highly recommend reading.

The movie "Valerie" can be found on YouTube by searching for "ekberg valerie". The description is in Spanish although the movie is English.