Above are two editions of the Lee Roberts novel Little Sister, which came from Fawcett Publications with cover art posed by a model. The edition we read is the 1954 at top, with the model looking straight ahead. The one at bottom, where she’s looking at the viewer and has a cigarette, we borrowed from Flickr. It’s from 1952. Photo covers are often blah, but ones from this era can occasionally be nice. Check here and here for examples. The two above certainly catch the eye. The model, unfortunately, is unattributed, as they nearly always were on these.
Roberts, aka Robert Martin, is a relatively reliable author, so we went into this one eager. Little Sister has at its core a take on the Sternwood Sisters from The Big Sleep. Both Prosper sisters are beautiful, with older Vivian fiercely protective of younger Linda, who’s a simple-minded vamp always getting into trouble. In this case, Linda drunkenly pulls her car up to the family’s Cleveland estate one morning with a corpse in the trunk. Private dick Andrew Brice had already been called in by Vivian to break up Linda’s engagement to a presumed gold-digger, and is on the premises when this latest baffling situation arises.
In short order Brice is hired by another party to make sure the marriage happens. The conflict of interest doesn’t cause him any qualms at all. What does is that he’s soon drugged, beaten, shot at, and led around in circles by both Prosper sisters, resulting in thorough confusion. Detectives are expected to solve these conundrums, but instead Brice gets an explanation from the villain, who lays out the entire dastardly plot in an arrogant soliloquy. This is rarely a great choice for an author to make, but the book manages to be entertaining up to that point, so we won’t be too hard on Roberts for taking the easy exit. Little Sister is recommendable—but only just.
