Fletcher Flora's Let Me Kill You, Sweetheart was written in 1958. Three men have sex with a young woman. One of them murders her. They all have motives, but very different motives. A witty lighthearted murder mystery/psychosexual melodrama with dashes of whimsy and black comedy and a hint of noir.

Here's my review.

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The Savage Salome is a 1961 Carter Brown thriller featuring hip PI Danny Boyd. Danny is hired by an opera singer to find her dog's murderer. He finds a lot more than that. If you love trashy sleazy hardboiled PI thrillers you'll love this one.

Here's my review.


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The India-Rubber Men is a 1929 Edgar Wallace thriller. London is hit by daring robberies carried out by men in rubber gas masks, armed with gas bombs. Much of the action takes place on the river or at sea. Lots of breathless excitement, suspense, action and last-minute escapes. Great fun.

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Elliott Chaze’s Black Wings Has My Angel is a 1953 novel. Tim plans a big heist but gets mixed up in a complex tumultuous relationship with a high-class call-girl. As a noir novel it's pretty good. As a twisted love story it’s definitely top-tier.

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James O. Causey's Frenzy (1960) features noir fiction's most vicious treacherous conscienceless amoral protagonist. He plans to con a big operator and gets mixed up with a deadly thousand dollar a night whore. Noir fiction on steroids. Superb.

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Calvin Clements' 1954 novel Satan Takes the Helm has a nautical setting. A freighter captain is drawn into an intrigue with the owner's very much younger and obviously sex-starved wife. A classic well-crafted noir tale with a fine femme fatale.

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Eugene Thomas’s Bait for Men, short stories from the 1930s about Vivian Legrand, The Lady From Hell. She's a thief, a blackmailer, a murderess, cruel, vindictive and has no moral scruples. She is also intelligent, resourceful and daring and one can’t help developing a liking for her. She’s a classic sexy bad girl. Great fun.

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Gil Brewer's Nude on Thin Ice, a 1960 noir novel with a protagonist driven by greed and lust. The male and female characters are all depraved and corrupt. Very sleazy, very noir and very good. And there is a nude in the book and she is on ice.

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Fredric Brown’s The Far Cry was published in 1951. A man is digging up evidence on a Lonely Hearts murder eight years earlier. A psychological crime novel, but focusing on the psychology of the amateur detective rather than the killer. Not bad.

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Dial ‘M’ for Man is an excellent 1962 Orrie Hitt novel. He's usually described as a writer of sleaze fiction but mostly his books are noir fiction with some sleaze. This one is pure noir fiction. An honest TV repairman meets a dangerous blonde.

Here's my review.


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