The Naked and the Deadly: Lawrence Block in Men's Adventure Magazines is a superb collection. For me the highlights are the three Ed London PI stories and the two Evan Tanner tales. So much pulp fun here. Early Lawrence Block is always a treat.

Here's my review.


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Gil Brewer’s 1963 Memory of Passion is oddball noir fiction, drenched in lust, desperation and craziness. Bill meets a woman from his past. It’s her all right, but it isn’t. It’s not the same woman, but it is. Frenetic, crazed, fascinating.

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Bruce Elliott’s 1952 fine noir novel One is a Lonely Number. A guy busts out of jail but his girl has stolen the money from the robbery. He spent his last five bucks on a whore. He has a good plan for easy money. It won't end well.

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Charles Runyon’s The Prettiest Girl I Ever Killed was published in 1965. A thematically and structurally unconventional serial killer story that becomes more and more fascinating as the reader is drawn into the author’s clever and devious game.

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Carter Brown's Where Did Charity Go? is a 1970 entry in his Rick Holman Hollywood PI series. A movie star has mislaid his daughter. Rick has three dangerous dames to deal with. He sleeps with all of them, which might be a bad idea.Good solid pulp fiction.

Here's my review.


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Dan J. Marlowe’s The Vengeance Man, published in 1966. A guy has a plan to murder his wife in front of witnesses and get away with it. Slightly noir, but has an overwhelming atmosphere of corruption and paranoia and more than one femme fatale.

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The Man with the Getaway Face, from 1963, was the second Parker novel by Donald E. Westlake (writing as Richard Stark). Hardboiled crime featuring one of the great anti-heroes.

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Peter Rabe’s The Box is a 1962 hardboiled crime novel with a tropical setting and a dash of noir. It begins with a man in a packing crate. He’s a lawyer and racketeer. The box is a punishment. There's tropical sleaze, quiet desperation and the moral corruption of expatriates gone to seed. Great stuff.

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Don Tracy’s Criss-Cross was published in 1934 and was one of the first true noir novels. A dumb washed-up boxer gets mixed up in an armoured car robbery for the sake of a bad girl. Lots of unhealthy love and lust, and betrayal. And double crosses. With a nicely twisted ending. Top-notch noir.

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A Gun for Honey was published in 1958. Big-breasted hardboiled girl private eye Honey West (who packs a rod and never wears a bra) is after a psycho who kisses girls to death. There's a solid mystery plot and it's sleazy, trashy, amusing, entertaining and generally delightful.

Here's my review.


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