Gasp! by Laura Axelrod

Back to Pulp

Report for a Corpse by Henry Kane
Dell Publishing, 1947

Women have a lot of nicknames in pulp: dames, broads, cherries... but I've never heard of them referred to as tomatoes.

This collection of short stories by Henry Kane has detective (or "Private Richard" as he calls himself) Peter Chambers on the case against sleazy husbands, duplicitious clients, among others. His compatriot, Lieutenant Parker at Homicide, reluctantly has his back.

Most of the stories center around greed. Chambers doesn't come off like a know-it-all. At times, he plays right into the hands of the culprits and unmasks the murderers by accident.

The women are tempting, and so is the smell of dirty money. Whether you call them tomatoes or damsels in distress, reading Report for a Corpse is a good way to spend an afternoon... Especially when you're sick in bed.

The Accomplice by Matthew Head

The Accomplice
by Matthew Head
Dell Publishing, 1947, 240 pages

Hank Bewley has a crush on Corrie Walters, who in turn is in love with Lex Abbott, who accidentally married the uber-odd Mimi Decors.

Hank serves as the narrator. His voice submerges itself in the story. Despite the long sentences, it never overstays its welcome.

“I was at a bar, in Paris. Not a fancy bar, and not a student bar, just a nice commonplace comfortable little bar, and we were drinking chocolate. This was in the middle nineteen-thirties, 1934 to be exact, and I was with a very nice girl from Kansas City, named Corrie Walters.

…She didn’t have the kind of ravishing good looks that take you off your feet at first glance, or even the impertinent prettiness that can hit just as hard, but the longer you looked at her, the more nice things you began to discover.”

Mimi is the one on the cover and readers can correctly assume that she’s the one who dies. The murder takes place late in the story. It becomes incidental to the intertwining lives of the characters.

This would all be mundane treachery, but Mimi believes she is the reincarnation of Ninon de Lenclos. She also runs a cult called Kwanah, where people find their famous personalities through history. Mimi manipulatively uses her wily powers to bind herself to Lex.

Of course, Lex is a rich, pretty boy with a violent streak. Hank has his eye on Corrie, who can’t seem to let go of her crush on Lex. Try as he might, Hank can’t get Corrie to forget Lex. Both she and Mimi are possessed by him.

The death itself adds a surprising element to the book. I would’ve thought that having sex with a corpse would be unmentionable in 1947.

There’s a list of characters in the beginning of the book, along with a map of Mimi Décors’ house on the back cover. The uncredited cover art is fabulous, and was recently duplicated. (Or do we call that an homage?)

A solid psychological thriller which definitely stands the test of time.

Walk the Dark Streets by William Krasner

Walk the Dark Streets
by William Krasner.
Bantam, 1950. First Edition. Paperback. 197 pages.

Janice Morel, an aging actress, works in a run-down nightclub. One night she’s discovered naked in her hotel room, knifed under her left breast, dead.

The suspects…

• The nightclub owner
  
• Her dishonest agent
  
• A close friend
  
• A blind musician living down the hall
  
• A waitress
  
• The chambermaid

Can Captain Sam Birge and Lt. Charley Hagen solve the case?

Hard to believe this garnered an Edgar nomination in 1949. While Krasner can deftly draw a setting, it was difficult to delineate between Birge and Hagen. The characters stayed flat on the page, and the victim remained lifeless.

Filled with the requisite gathering of suspects and false ending, reading "Walk" could prove to be a good study for writing techniques. Otherwise, skip it.

The Hated One by Don Tracy

The Hated One
by Don Tracy
Permabooks, 1964. 198 pages. Paperback.

In less than 200 pages, Don Tracy weaves a complex tale that involves segregation, Southern Culture, class differences, and Freedom Riders.

Lawyer and practicing alcoholic Frank Coombs has come home to Tangerine County, Florida to sign over the last piece of property in his inheritance. Years earlier, he left town in disgrace, with a wreckage of relationships and bad checks behind him. As he attempts to settle his accounts, he unwittingly becomes involved in the case of Coralee Preston. Coralee, a young black woman, has been charged with the murder of a white man. It is up to Frank Coombs to prove Coralee innocent – if indeed she is truly innocent.

This tightly structured novel is successful because it interweaves a number of universal themes.

Two wounded misfits, meeting through unlikely circumstances, rescue each other. Each characters needs the other in order to heal. The challenge is that they don’t like or trust each other. Coralee doesn’t trust Frank enough to tell him the truth. Frank doesn’t trust Coralee enough to ask. Both are imprisoned by their current situation: racism and alcoholism.

The artwork on the cover reinforces this theme. Frank and Coralee are pictured behind bars, with Frank’s hand steadying himself. Frank is penciled in grey while Coralee is painted in color. Like many other mass market books from the era, the artist is officially uncredited in the book. He did, however, sign the work. Unfortunately, his signature is illegible.

A majority ruled by an evil minority. Will the main character be able to free the majority from the evil minority? His success confirms the concept of individual responsibility; each individual has to confront injustice on his or her own.

A main character in search of redemption. The novel opens with Frank looking for redemption from his past. It ends with Frank searching for forgiveness. Will he be able to go beyond the past and present and begin a new future? It’s an intriguing question considering the events taking place in 1964.

The historical elements both inside and outside the novel make this a valuable addition to any book collection.

The Hated One is included in Orange Pulp, a collection of Florida Crime Fiction. Otherwise, a copy of this book can be purchased through alibris or Amazon.