| Vintage Pulp | Jun 20 2023 |
Yeah, you're right, that was pretty evil of me. But I find that a swift kick in the nuts works better than plain old no.
In detective yarns the MacGuffin—the thing everyone is chasing—might be a suitcase of money, or diamonds, or bearer bonds, or a shipment of heroin. In John Evans', aka Howard Browne's, intriguingly titled Halo for Satan the thing being pursued is an ancient parchment allegedly written by Jesus Christ. Its discoverer wants to sell it to the Catholic church for $25 million (that would a third of a billion in today's money), but disappears without a trace. A high ranking Chicago bishop hires private dick Paul Pine to find the missing man and document. Pretty soon others want the artifact too. One of them is a former top gangster who's near death and believes he can make his way into the good graces of the church—and thus into heaven—by donating the parchment. That's where the unusual title comes into play. A criminal Satan wants a halo.
Naturally, the question of authenticity is important to the story, but the central themes here are greed and ruthlessness. As Pine puts it: “You have to be a violent person to make money. I don’t necessarily mean the stab-and-shoot kind of violence. I mean the kind that will let you kick other people aside to get your hands dipped in gold.” Since the parchment is a classic MacGuffin, it doesn't appear until the end—like the Maltese Falcon. Meanwhile betrayals abound, bodies accumulate, and Evans turns numerous hard-boiled phrases while leading readers to a bloody resolution. We found Halo for Satan reasonably fun, even though it would be pretty thin without its gimmick. It was originally published in 1948, with this Bantam edition coming in 1950. The cover art is uncredited.
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 25 2014 |
Giovanni Benvenuti raises the bar for French crime covers.
Today we wanted to share a series of truly spectacular French covers from Frédéric Ditis’s eponymous company Ditis, published as part of its popular La Chouette—or Owl—collection. These all date from the mid-1950s to early 1960s, and there’s really nothing to say about them except that they’re by the sublime Giovanni Benvenuti.
FranceÉditions DitisFrédéric DitisGiovanni BenvenutiHelen NielsenNoël VexinAnthony MortonTerry DrakeMichel AverlantJean Pierre FerrièreJohn EvansGeneviève Manceroncover artcover collectionliterature
