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: Sheba

Sheba by Orrie Hitt
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This one was awful. I've been willing to cut Hitt some slack in my other reviews of Hitt's novels because he did have a kind of genius for writing reasonably complex plotted novels using third-grade reading comprehension prose. But his "see Dick run" prose is incredibly lame in this one. Usually Hitt tunneled into some profession - radio advertising, insurance sales, etc. - and provided an interesting window into 1950s work/business. So reading Hitt usually provides a cultural anthropology window into that era. Not here. The setting is a car dealership and unscrupulous loans, but Hitt was completely going through the motions and didn't provide any deep glimpse into the business. Which was a big disappointment. And the rest is just embarrassing.

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Review: The Green Eagle Score

The Green Eagle Score by Richard Stark
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Along with The Score, when Parker robs an entire town, this 10th in the series is one of my favorites. Parker plans out the seemingly ridiculous heist of the payroll at an Air Force base. (This is 1967 and the bi-weekly payroll was paid in cash.) Early focus is the casing of the base with the help of the inside guy who works in the finance office. The major complication is that the girlfriend of the finance guy is also the ex-wife of another member of the crew. So early on we know this heist is going to go wrong. A further complication is that the girlfriend is describing the heist planning to her psychologist in thrice weekly sessions, and we know this will muck things up but not how. Saying much more will spoil the read, but suffice to say that the last third of the book is non-stop action with an exciting heist and its surprising and wild aftermath. Stark/Westlake nails the ending in this one.

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Review: The Rare Coin Score

The Rare Coin Score by Richard Stark
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The tension builds relentlessly as Parker, more out of boredom than the need to increase his stake, breaks a few of his rules and joins a scheme for a big heist at a coin collector's convention. It's not a question of if this heist is going to go wrong, but how and when, and that kept me turning pages as fast as I could read. Parker is at his dominating best throughout, using equal parts humiliation and intimidation, but he makes a few mistakes, and despite all the rigorous planning, it is chaos down the home stretch. Plenty of excitement and Parker is the baddest of bad asses, but the ending—the last four pages specifically—felt dubious and a bit disappointing.

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Review: The Green Ripper

The Green Ripper by John D. MacDonald
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of my favorites in the series because it forces Travis McGee to go all-in on a dark journey to avenge the murder of Gretel, the woman he fell in love with at the end of The Empty Copper Sea. The last quarter of this novel features one of MacDonald's best climactic concluding sequences. Before we get there, however, we start with the love struck McGee and the quick death of Gretel, gone by the end of chapter two. What follows is a brief investigation by McGee and Meyer, which prompts two different teams of federal-ish agents (one bogus, one real) to investigate McGee and Meyer. It all dead ends and a despondent McGee is told by everyone to give up and move on. McGee's response is to drop out of his life, which includes sending Meyer a letter with instructions about what to do if/when McGee doesn't come back, and to chase down one sliver of a clue. The middle has McGee assume a fake identity and infiltrate the militant wing of the Church of Apocrypha. At first McGee is locked up, but eventually the terrorists start trusting him and he begins training with them, which gives him the chance to learn each of their strengths and weaknesses. MacDonald jumps right to the extended conclusion and over the next fifty or so pages McGee battles with and proceeds to (still three books left in the series, so not a spoiler alert) eliminate all eleven terrorists using rocks, knives, guns, grenades, and probably a head butt or two. And thus, Gretel avenged, McGee is healed and ready to return to his houseboat moored in slip F-18, Bahia Mar marina, Fort Lauderdale, and resume his old life as a beach bum and salvage consultant. MacDonald delivers on all levels and you needn't be familiar with the rest of the series to enjoy this because it also works as stand alone thriller.

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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: Lust Pro

Lust Pro by John Dexter
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

John Dexter was a house name at Greenleaf used for just about everybody, but this one was by Richard A. Curtis, who also wrote three books under the Burt Alden pseudo. Haven't found much on Curtis other than that he was among the crew at the Scott Meredith Agency who started out reading manuscripts and graduated to writing sleazers to feed the Greenleaf production line (30 plus books a month at one point). Raleigh is the golf pro at the Baywind Country Club and the first chapter is not too bad as he dusts off the club champion on the 18th hole while eyeing the guy's wife and ignoring his own. The plot, which all told probably takes up about 10 of the 189 pages, has Raleigh negotiating a deal for some of the members to buy the country club. The rest of the book consists of poorly written sex scenes, with a smattering of better written scenes where Raleigh is hitting balls on the practice range while trying to get his head straight. Not recommended.

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Review: Isle of Sin

Isle of Sin by John Dexter
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This 1961 Nightstand reads like a frat-boy fantasy. First-person narrator Rick Lane is a sleazy folk singer chasing fame, fortune, and fanny. His agent lands him a summer gig at a resort town that resembles Provincetown and it is a target rich environment. He can't keep his pants on for any longer than the time it takes to remove them. The nightclub crowds love his performances and future stardom is assured. There's a slight speed bump in the last third of the novel, but let's not kid ourselves about how this fantasy will end.

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Review: The Blonde on the Street Corner

The Blonde on the Street Corner by David Goodis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Goodis is well-known for his many crime noirs from the 1950s. This 1954 Lion paperback original set in 1936 Philadelphia is not one of those. Instead it is a portrait of depression-era ennui. Although a basically plot-less novel (the point) about four 30-ish men who live with their parents and spend most of their time standing around on street corners, it nonetheless crackles with energy in between long stretches of flat meaningless dialog. In response to shouts from his sister to get a job you lazy bum, Ralph instead descends into a three-page think that is a stunning repudiation of the American Dream, as if to say, if that's all you got, I'll stand around on a street corner and do nothing, thank you very much. Parsed in this way, we have an uneven novel, with brilliant flashes of literary realism. Goodis was well-read and well-educated and knew exactly what he was doing here and you wouldn't be far off making the connections with Kafka and Beckett or noticing the obvious homage to West's Miss Lonelyhearts. The real star of the novel is Lenore, the blonde on the street corner, who starts and ends this story by getting what she wants, "the kind of action that knocks me out, puts me on a roller coaster going haywire." Ralph gives it to her "like a beast" and that's where their dreams go to die.

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Review: Sin Ship Skipper

Sin Ship Skipper by Alan Marshall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Better written and edited than most vintage sleaze novels I've read, which makes me wonder which well-known author might have written this one. Alan Marshall was basically a house name for Greenleaf, although it was first used by Donald Westlake when he started publishing with Midwood and later for his Nightstand (Greenleaf) novels. This is not a Westlake, however, and its 1968 publication date likely rules out some of the other mainstream authors who started out publishing sleaze under pseudonyms. That said, sometimes older manuscripts were pulled out of storage and published years later, so who knows. Need to do more sleuthing, and this may be nothing, but I have found numerous stylistic and textual clues (of the sort that have been used to identify Whittington and Block novels) that point to John Jakes. Jakes was identified by Earl Kemp (Greenleaf editor) as the early J. X. Williams (a pseudo also later also used for Whittington novels), and one Alan Marshall—Shame Isle —has been previously linked to Jakes, which is one of the novels where I found stylistic similarities to Sin Ship Skipper. This is a bawdy blackmail fueled crime novel that takes place mostly at sea on board a yacht on its way from San Francisco to Panama. The first person protagonist is Captain Toby Dorn who has a reputation in the bunk as well as at the helm. The guests on the yacht include a bevy of what Dorn might describe as bed-able broads and he spends most of his time bouncing them on his bunk. Well, what else would you expect from a Greenleaf novel? The sex is not too explicit and the last half of the novel is focused on the unraveling of the blackmail plot and a series of murders that go along with it. Not great but a cut above the typical sleazer.

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