Thieves Fall Out by Cameron Kay (Gold Medal 311) (1953)

Pete Wells is an American in a tight spot in post-war Cairo. Relieved of his wallet and bereft of cash after a night on the town, he willingly falls in with a dissolute Englishman called Hastings and Helene, Comtesse de Rastignac, a larcenous pair who offer him a means of financial resolution from his imperilled situation. They persuade Pete to act as a courier for a valuable relic which he must collect from Luxor and return to them in Cairo, from where it can be spirited out of the country. However, a persistent and seemingly corrupt local police officer is following Pete, who soon discovers that obtaining the valuable relic and returning it to his current employers may be more difficult and dangerous than he could have imagined; especially after he falls for a beautiful blonde German singer called Anna whose connections to the country's ruler could precipitate even greater uproar and bloodshed.

What appears to be a formulaic if colourful and adventuresome Gold Medal paperback original is lent added spice by the fact that 'Cameron Kay' was a pseudonym for Gore Vidal. This means that the writing is both smoother and more polished, but also less gritty and hardboiled, than many of the publisher's usual offerings and lends the book greater interest than its rather routine subject matter might otherwise suggest.

Unsurprisingly, given his subsequent novels, the young Vidal seems to have more interest in the psychology, corruption and occasional lustful inclinations of the supporting cast than in the plotting or pace, with many of characters seeming more the kind of archetypes readily found in films of the day like Casablanca and Sirocco (for example, in terms of appearance and character Hastings appears to have been strongly based on Sydney Greenstreet). Wells himself is essentially a two-fisted caricature stumbling and fighting his way through a narrative of double-crosses and deceit and the third person narrative means that there is little sense of getting inside his head or, indeed, the story.

So, although this moves at a rapid clip and features some often interesting incidental detail - particularly sexual (as well a climax involving a revolt in Cairo that unwittingly possesses greater contemporary resonance), were it not for the interesting provenance this would otherwise be a competent if throwaway example of its publisher's prodigious and often more impressive output.

VERDICT: O-Kay

AFTERWORD: Apparently, Gore Vidal refused to sanction any reprints of this book. This means that this is the only US edition and, along with its even more uncommon UK Red Seal edition (No.58, 1956), is seemingly tough to find - especially in shape. Consequently, given its scarcity and desirability, it commands rather high prices from online dealers who are aware of the identity of the author hiding behind the pseudonym.

How Awful About Allan by Henry Farrell (Four Square Books 1479) (1966)

Allan Colleigh has been partially blind for several months following the death of his father in a house fire and he now suffers from 'hysterical blindness', a possibly temporary condition directly linked to the trauma and one that could possibly be reversed by a similar shocking incident. He lives with his sister Katherine in an old Gothic house near to the university campus where his father lectured and also receives occasionally care and attention from their neighbour Olive. Allan is troubled by a number of occurrences that appear linked to the arrival of a barely glimpsed male student lodger who appears to keep irregular hours, and this triggers his increasing paranoia as he begins to suspect that someone - or something - intends leading him to his doom.

The reader shares Allan's increasing apprehension and growing terror through the first person narration which effectively maintains the level of uncertainty until the final twists. Author Henry Farrell's best known novel - and the one which the cover blurb reminds us of - was Whatever Happened To Baby Jane and this novel similarly features two female characters who may hold the key to unlock the narrative resolution. The blindness metaphor blurs the sense of illusion and reality and similarly obscures the truth from the reader, and the tension is also generally kept at a high level as the author makes the cold, creepy and creaking house with its dark recesses and hidden secrets a forbidden character that seems to possess a life of its own.

Less satisfying is the twist in the tail which relies on aspects of character and appearance not being revealed to Allan throughout the novel. It also includes a lazy plot device involving an inscribed book that is neither satisfactorily nor credibly handled.

Overall, this is a well-written psychodrama, albeit one that would have benefited from some tighter plotting.

VERDICT: Not awful, just average.

AFTERWORD: The author subsequently adapted the novel into a 1970 teleplay which was directed by Curtis Harrington (see Games below) and starred Anthony Perkins as Allan, Julie Harris as Katherine and Joan Hackett as Olive. Given that it jettisons most of the first person perspective save for some blurry scenes where Allan is menaced by person or persons unknown, the narrative takes a far more conventional path. Much of the claustrophobia and chilly tension is dissipated and the brief running time also means it never really works up a head of steam so as to function as an effective psychodrama. However, it is well-played by a surprisingly strong principal cast, although it still can't resolve the unsatisfactory inscribed book plot device. The film appears to be widely available on various budget DVD labels.

Games (1967) (Universal Vault Series) 100 mins.

Paul and Jennifer Montgomery (James Caan and Katharine Ross) are wealthy socialites who live on New York's East Side in a house decorated with pop art paintings and sculptures and Victorian paraphernalia. The keep themselves amused by staging quirky soirees and playing games, and soon involve an enigmatic older woman Lisa Schindler (Simone Signoret) in the latter when she is taken ill in their house and invited to stay. However, the games escalate from practical jokes and take an apparently deadly turn. But who is playing for keeps?...

Finally released on DVD in the US, albeit as a movie-on-demand DVD-R, this twisty 1967 thriller is an enjoyable, effective and suspenseful thriller. Much of the film takes place in the Paul and Jennifer's house, which lends the film a claustrophobic air but also occasionally feels studio-bound and rather stagey. That said, there are some effective twists (well, they worked for me, anyway) and although the presence of Simone Signoret as the mysterious Lisa intentionally evokes her ambiguous role in the earlier superior Les Diaboliques (The Fiends) and she is given less to do than her top billing suggests, a youthful James Caan and Katharine Ross effectively convey the sense of louche moneyed boredom that underpins the couple's desire for excitement and adventure.

Director Curtis Harrington handles the suspense effectively, with a body that won't stop bleeding as it rises and then gets stuck in an elevator being a notable Hitchcockian highlight. There's little here beyond an oddball opening party, the occasional modish pop art trappings and some playing around with mirrors and the notion of reflections to remind one of his avant-garde underground origins as this is by and large a slick studio thriller; albeit one with an ending that foreshadows cynical 70s film-making rather than seeming of a piece with 60s genre filmmaking. Nevertheless, it's a reminder that Harrington was one of the more underused talents of the times and one whose other cult films (e.g. Night Tide, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?, What's The Matter With Helen?, The Killing Kind and Ruby) are well-worth seeking out.

VERDICT: Worth playing.

AFTERWORD: $20 or thereabouts for this movie-on-demand DVD-R is a high price which is just about worth paying for this bare bones catalogue title that would probably otherwise not be seen as worth releasing (although an off-air recording from, say, TCM would yield a similar product for far less outlay). There's also a seemingly common movie tie-in paperback by acclaimed 50s juvenile delinquency specialist Hal Ellson (see cover scan above) - although I have yet to read the book.

Shoot It Again by Ed Lacy (Paperback Library 63-134) (1969) Formerly Titled: The Sex Castle

Clayton Biner is a would-be artist in his late 30s slumming it on the Mediterranean Riviera until one day he attempts to cash a cheque (or check as they say in the US) and discovers that the passport he presents to confirm his identity is not his own. This draws him into the first of his adventures in this book, and one that ends violently when he manages to rescue a heroin addict and extricate himself from a nightmarish scenario. As if this is not enough (we are only fifty pages in when this storyline is apparently resolved), the almost penniless Biner is subsequently persuaded to traffic a large quantity of heroin into the US. When his attempt to sell the heroin to his contact ends simialrly violently, Biner finds himself on the run from the Syndicate and has to forge a risky alliance with a female junkie as he attempts to make a score that will set him up for life.

Biner is an often amoral and generally dislikable anti-hero who narrates the tale in flashback with a jaundiced and cynical air. His contempt for humanity is, of course, a shield to attempt to protect himself from his own self-loathing, so that what emerges occasionally echoes Jim Thompson in its 'plague on all your houses' pitilessness and fatalistic narrative arc. The action is swift and the tale barrels along in clipped sentences, occasionally segueing into a stream of consciousness as we gradually discover what has transpired. The occasional burst of violence are also often graphic, seemingly foreshadowing the levels of realism that were soon to enter the cinematic mainstream (the book was written in 1963). And there's also atmosphere aplenty, from the seamier side of the Riviera settings in the opening section when various lost and jaded characters wash up to the seedy and sweaty desperate urban mileu of drinking dens and apartments inhabited by similar lost souls often hooked on narcotics that accelerate their spiral into despair.

Ed Lacy was a prolific author who had around thirty novels of mostly crime fiction published over a period of eighteen years before dying from a heart attack at the age of 56 in 1968. Born Leonard S. Zinberg, he is most often noted as the white creator of what is probably the first realistic and believable African-American private detective series character in Room To Swing (1957). As I own a copy of every novel he wrote, I really should have read more of them and aim to put that right very soon. In the meantime, this one comes highly recommended to fans of pacy hardboiled crime fiction.

VERDICT: A real shot in the arm!

AFTERWORD: This retitled reprint must have one of the blandest and most misleading covers of all time. More closely resembling a James Bond cover with its smartly suited and booted executive type taking aim at the reader as a scantily-clad blonde clutching a fur coat drapes herself over his shoulder, the artwork could not be further away from the reality of the tale within if it tried (although I suppose a cover sporting a dissipated failure with a heroin addict woman in tow may not have shifted many copies in the eyes of its publisher). The original 1963 publication as The Sex Castle is not much better as the shapely redhead with the strategically-placed towel taking a phone call on a rather old-fashioned looking device on the cover - and who does not resemble any of the book's female characters - and a back cover that inaccurately sells the would-be reader a world of 'swimming pools in California, haciendas in Mexico' indicates the same publisher was similarly uncertain of what they were selling or who they intended to sell it to. six years earlier.

Trap For Cinderella by Sebastien Japrisot (Corgi Books GC7444) (1966)

I'll briefly summarise this one by paraphrasing Julian Symons' Sunday Times review that appears in part on the back cover, as to go into further detail risks giving away too much of the plot. 'The girl has been burned in a house on the French Riviera. Her companion, a girl of the same age died in the fire. Is the survivor Mi, the heiress, or Do, her adoring platonically lesbian companion?'

Sebastian Japrisot is a pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Rossi, and this pseudonym is an anagram of the author's real name. The writing is stylish and witty, and even though the events in the novel are certainly far-fetched, they remain just this side of credible. The well-realised backdrops - particularly those set amongst the idle rich and which recall the French adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, Plein Soleil (Purple Noon) - suggest a familiarity with the disdainful and morally compromised that gives the reader a strong sense of whom to root for, even though the payoff may leave a sour taste (and for those who think they have it figured out early on, there are a couple of surprises to catch you off-guard).

Riviera noir set predominantly amidst a sun-dappled locale, and recommended for those on the lookout for some continental 60s-set suspense.

VERDICT: In-Cind-iary!

AFTERWORD: As with many 60s noir and hardboiled titles, this Corgi paperback edition seems to be rather elusive these days (although I keep forgetting that books of this vintage are over forty years old, so there's no reason why they should still be plentiful). Some of the reprint editions also seem to be priced on the high side (the 1990 No Exit Press edition appears to be the most common and cheapest), but an English language film adaptation directed by Iain Softley is due to be released in late 2012, so a movie tie-in edition may be in the offing (NB There was an earlier 1965 French language adaptation that does not appear to have been released on video or DVD or translated into English).

Fifty Roads To Town by Frederick Nebel (Jonathan Cape, 1936)

The Outpost Hotel in Sanbornton, New Hampshire, is the staging post for several lost souls who converge during a snowstorm. Reluctant fire extinguisher salesman Edwin Henry stops off during one of his occasional visits and subsequently becomes trapped on an impassable road. Seeking refuge in a log cabin, he is reluctantly welcomed inside by Peter Nostrand, a man whom Henry had previously encountered, first on the road travelling to the Outpost Hotel and later at the hotel where he had signed the register as Thomas Layton. Nostrand has good reason to be hiding out incognito, as he had been caught in flagrante with Irene Prior by her husband Philip, who had shot and wounded him and who subsequently swore to kill him. With a heavy snowstorm marooning Edwin at the log cabin, and without a phone to tell his wife Edna of his whereabouts, a manhunt is soon in full swing. And as other stragglers from the storm arrive at the Outpost Hotel, they are joined by the vengeful Philip Prior and a frantic Edna, whilst Edwin begins to suspect that Peter Nostrand is not who he seems to be.

This is the third novel by one of the unofficial founder members of the 'Hardboiled' school, a man who already had around two hundred published short stories to his name and whom Black Mask editor Joseph T. Shaw apparently considered to be the equal of Chandler or Hammett. This is more of a melodrama than a hardboiled thriller, and one which essentially turns on the idea, latterly expressed in the novel that 'It is the unforeseen signpost that makes or breaks a man'. With a highly readable, tight and pared-down prose style honed in the pulps, Nebel moves the tale along at a brisk clip, rapidly building the tale through the motives and actions of the disparate characters.

Underpinning the tale is a strong sense that it is the inability of human beings to connect that determines their outcomes, even when - or perhaps particularly - when they are flung together in an intense melting pot where they are forced to depend on each other. In this sense, it is a rather bleak tale (as well as one that makes me curious to see the 1937 film loosely based on it and which, according to IMDB, is a comedy about a man - presumably Nostrand - who 'hides out in the country to avoid testifying in his friends' divorce' and who is mistaken for a gangster by various people), and one which interestingly does not resolve itself neatly as there are some neat twists in the tale which doesn't end happily for many of the characters.

Given the rather bleak psychological undertone and often dark tonal shadings - particularly in the final pages when the tragic climax plays out - this appears more modern than one might expect from a text originally set down in 1936 (notwithstanding the presence of some stock 30s stereotypes including a wisecracking tough cookie torch singer, a hardboiled newshawk, and a slow-witted hotel employee whose physical ticks seem to have been created with an eye on his cinematic comedy potential).

Highly recommended if you can find it at a reasonable price (and apologies for the rather grotty front cover, but this is the cheapest copy I could find - as well as the only UK edition I've ever seen offered for sale).

VERDICT: Roadworthy

AFTERWORD: I have no idea why this title - or Nebel's other full-length novels - are almost impossible to find or, more importantly, have never been reprinted (although the highly obscure Century Mystery Weekend to Kill - originally issued as a double with Hugh Pentecost's Secret Corridors - has been reprinted by Wildside Press). He was a key hardboiled author of his day who remains generally unsung and virtually unknown outside a small core of genre enthusiasts and who, on the basis of this novel, is certainly worth reading and championing.

.44 by H.A. DeRosso (Lion 129) (1953)

Dan Harland is a 27 year-old hired killer. He doesn't like the job, but it's all he's good for. One day, he tracks down the man he has been paid to kill, but when the man draws his gun first and then refuses to fire Dan shoots him down. Puzzled as to why the man wouldn't take his shot, Dan tends to his victim but although the man lingers awhile before dying, he takes his secret to the grave.

So, Dan sets out on a trail to discover why he was sent to kill the man, who paid him and how the man came to be marked for death. It is a trail that leads him back to the man's hometown where he meets a cast of characters who each seem to be concealing part of the mystery, and whose secrets may put Dan in Boot Hill.

I love Western movies, but have never had the same affection for the novel form. However, this is a curious and effective hybrid, being a Western novel that adopts many of the tropes of film noir. The self-loathing anti-hero here is not trapped within the concrete canyons of an unfeeling metropolis, but instead finds himself assailed on all sides beneath some very real canyons in world of space and desolation. As the narrative unfolds and ensnares Dan, he finds himself at the mercy of criminal kingpins, an explanation that always remains marginally beyond his grasp and which, in part, even eludes the reader in the case of the McGuffin that propels the action.

And yes, there's even a femme fatale.

There's also some surprisingly brutal violence, sharp psychological insights (for example, Dan remarks 'It isn't the killings that you detest that are bad. It's the ones that you enjoy'), enough lost souls to populate several film noirs, and a pitilessly bleak ending that wouldn't seem out of place in the type of paperback originals Jim Thompson penned for Lion around the time of this novel's publication.

Overall, and in spite of some occasionally pedestrian writing, this is a genuine find, a Western novel for those who love the form as well as one for those like me who generally take their crime, noir and hardboiled straight up.

VERDICT: Bullseye!

AFTERWORD: Little seems to be known about author H.A. De Rosso, whose output in novel form is rather limited. Based on this gem, it seems like his other fiction will be well worth tracking down, and this one was reprinted as recently as 1998 so copies should not be too hard to find.