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The iconic Jim Thompson’s A Swell-Looking Babe has been re-issued a few times, but we’re fond of its debut edition as a Lion Books paperback in 1954. It has uncredited cover art, but it’s a nice effort. The star of the story is young Dusty Rhodes, who works as a bellboy in the fictional Manton Hotel and breaks the house rules when he gets involved with beautiful guest Marcia Hillis. The novel takes a weird, Oedipal twist when his feelings are revealed to be rooted in love for his mother, but in any case, he’s obsessed by Hillis. Later, to help her out of a jam, he accepts a favor from a resident gangster named Tug Trowbridge, and is subsequently pressured into helping rob his workplace. At first it looks like Dusty and Tug have pulled off the caper successfully, then in true pulp form things go pear-shaped. The consensus is A Swell-Looking Babe is a lesser Thompson. It definitely feels as though it lacks polish, but it’s still an okay time expenditure. We don’t know if he’ll ever top Pop. 1280. We’ll keep reading him to answer that very question.

Lion Books, Jim Thompson, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

January 17

1950—The Great Brinks Robbery Occurs

In the U.S., eleven thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car company’s offices in Boston, Massachusetts. The skillful execution of the crime, with only a bare minimum of clues left at the scene, results in the robbery being billed as “the crime of the century.” Despite this, all the members of the gang are later arrested.

January 17

1977—Gary Gilmore Is Executed

Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore is executed by a firing squad in Utah, ending a ten-year moratorium on Capital punishment in the United States. Gilmore’s story is later turned into a 1979 novel entitled The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer, and the book wins the Pulitzer Prize for literature.

January 16

1942—Carole Lombard Dies in Plane Crash

American actress Carole Lombard, who was the highest paid star in Hollywood during the late 1930s, dies in the crash of TWA Flight 3, on which she was flying from Las Vegas to Los Angeles after headlining a war bond rally in support of America’s military efforts. She was thirty-three years old.

January 15

1919—Luxemburg and Liebknecht Are Killed

Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, are tortured and murdered by the Freikorps. Freikorps was a term applied to various paramilitary organizations that sprang up around Germany as soldiers returned in defeat from World War I. Members of these groups would later become prominent members of the SS.

January 14

1967—Summer of Love Begins

The Human Be-In takes place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park with between 20,000 to 30,000 people in attendance, their purpose being to promote their ideals of personal empowerment, cultural and political decentralization, communal living, ecological preservation, and higher consciousness. The event is considered the beginning of the famed counterculture Summer of Love.