DEAD END STREET

Wow, it's unusually bloody out tonight. There's always been some slaughter, but lately the neighborhood's really gone downhill.

Victor Kalin painted this cover for Louis Falstein’s 1953 novel Slaughter Street, published by Pyramid Books. It’s excellent art, and this was an interesting book. It’s about a regular guy named Johnnie Constable who snitches the whereabouts of a wanted organized crime figure and experiences two negative results. First, the two detectives who later arrest the crook try to claim the $10,000 reward for themselves; and second, Constable comes increasingly under threat by unknown figures, presumably avatars of the mob boss, until his life, his pregnant fiancée’s life, his parents’ lives, and even those of his neighborhood friends are all at risk. He can’t even escape his block without coming under attack, and wouldn’t be able to go far without the reward money. He buys a gun, holes up in his apartment, and prepares for the worst. The narrative mostly operates as a family drama, and keeps the mob figure and police in the far background. The dual moral offered by Falstein is clear: never stick your neck out; never help the cops. This is a good, well written tale.

Pyramid Books, Louis Falstein, Victor Kalin, 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.