 What to do. Yes, she’s a circus freak whose arms come directly out of her ribcage, but it’s not as if I’m perfect. 
Steve Harragan isn’t only the author of Side-Show Girl—he’s its main character. Harragan, aka Bart Carson, aka William Maconachie wrote eleven thrillers starring himself in two years, including Cuban Heel. Side-Show Girl is set at Coney Island and gives Harragan a murder to solve that pits him against deadly lions, a murderous strongman, the hall of mirrors, the dangerously high rollercoaster, etc. It was the first of the Harragan series, coming in 1952.
 The only better thing than vintage sleaze is double the vintage sleaze.    
Above, two cool double novels, front and back covers, from Universal Publishing & Distributing Corp., part of their Giant series, editions 4 and 7, early 1950s. Since we have two double novels here, it's actually four times the vice, but you get the idea. Steve Harragan, by the way, is both the author and main character of Dope Doll and The Bigamy Kiss, as well as other books, and was actually a Brit named William Maconachie. We’ll get back to him. The art here is uncredited.
 American horndog experiences sharp cut in growth. 
Above is the cover of the 1953 gringo-in-Havana thriller Cuban Heel by Steve Harragan, aka Bart Carson, née William Maconachie, which finds the lead character tangled up in political intrigue as well as the arms of a local beauty. We really like the title of this one, because the fact that a Cuban heel is literally a style of boot heel makes it a nice play on words. We also really like the art, which is by that master illustrator Uncredited. We know a bit more about the author, but as with so many pseudonyms, the story behind Harragan/Carson/Maconachie is a bit convoluted. We may return to it at some point, but not today.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1939—Journey of the St. Louis
The German passenger liner MS St. Louis, carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, United States, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, many of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps. The event becomes the subject of a 1974 book, Voyage of the Damned, by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, and is later adapted into a film with the same title, released in 1976. 1968—Andy Warhol Is Shot
Valerie Solanas, feminist author of an anti-male tract she called the S.C.U.M. Manifesto (Society for Cutting Up Men), attempts to assassinate artist Andy Warhol by shooting him with a handgun. Warhol survives but suffers health problems for the rest of his life. Solanas serves three years in prison and eventually dies of emphysema at San Francisco's Bristol Hotel in 1988.
1941—Lou Gehrig Dies
New York Yankees baseball player Henry Louis Gehrig, aka The Iron Horse, who set a record for playing in 2,130 consecutive games over the course of fourteen seasons, dies of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, two years after the onset of the illness ended his consecutive games streak.
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