Vintage Pulp

July 18 2024

BOYS WILL BE TOYED WITH

I want this to be good, you two. So take one more look over here to remind yourselves what you're fighting about.

Last time we read a novel by the globetrotting Ed Lacy, we said afterward we’d travel anywhere with him. In 1961’s The Freeloaders, for which you see a beautiful but uncredited cover above, he once again conducts readers to an exotic place—the Côte d’Azur, in the company of a small clan of Americans trying to survive without work visas in and around Nice.

Freelance writer Al Cane, the most recent addition to the group, has occasional gigs and makes enough money to live. Ex-boxer/ex-cop/ex-advertising man/constant enigma Charley Martins has savings that keep him in a nice seafront apartment. But painter Gil Fletcher and inveterate schemer Ed Jones struggle daily. The women within the group are diverse. Charley’s girlfriend Pascale is young, beautiful, and precocious; Gil’s partner Simone is opportunistic and fickle; Ed’s girlfriend Daniele is industrious and kind.

Eventually, Gil, desperate to stay in Nice and in need of money for he and Daniele, cooks up a foolproof robbery scheme. But to quote Mickey Rourke in Body Heat, “Any time you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you’re gonna fuck up. If you think of twenty-five of them, then you’re a genius.” Gil is no genius. The rest of the story deals with the aftermath of the crime on the Nice guys, the unraveling of the mystery of who the mysterious Charley really is, and Al’s growing lust toward Pascale.

As with other Lacy novels, the flavor is as important as the plot, and he dishes up the South of France (with sides of Italy) in satisfying fashion. There are always a few nits to pick with him. Any time you write a novel there are at least fifty ways to fuck up. Lacy is no genius, but he always entertains. That’s travail numéro un.

France, Italy, Nice, Cannes, Ventimiglia, Berkley Books, Ed Lacy, Leonard Zinberg, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

November 13 2023

TWO TICKETS TO PARADISE

Around the world in 180 pages (or thereabouts).

Wouldn’t it be great to sail away to an exotic island, live in a hotel, and write novels? Ed Lacy was the archetypal globetrotting author, and 1963’s Two Hot To Handle is a product of that lifestyle. It’s two novellas joined: “Murder in Paradise,” set in Tahiti, and “The Coin of Adventure,” set on the other side of the planet in Tuscany.

“Murder in Paradise” is the tale of an American named Ray Judson and his local wife Ruita, who live reclusively on a small island, and are hired by a Hollywood studio to help scout locations for an adventure movie. Does this idea sound familiar? It should. We guess this sort of thing happened in real life enough to inspire a few novels.

Anyway, when the leading lady is murdered the police point the finger at Ruita, and Ray desperately undertakes to find the real killer. We’re going to start using the shorthand term “find-the-real-killer novels” to refer to these plotlines. By day Ruita eludes the cops by hiding out on a tiny islet, and by night she ventures ashore to assist her husband and sneak in some moonlit lovin. Avoiding prison is important, but you gotta get your freak on too.

“The Coin of Adventure” is about Kent Kelly, an American adventurer in Viareggio, Italy, who learns that fascists fleeing at the end of World War II abandoned a hoard of stolen gold in a cave. He and a partner head after the loot, but death and betrayal are always uninvited passengers on such missions.

Of the two stories we liked “Murder in Paradise” a little better. Lacy, it’s clear, strove to correctly portray Tahiti without resorting to travelogue or showy displays of local language. He was interested in the people. To even write a character like Ruita, who decides to work for the moviemakers to ensure that they get the details of her culture correct, shows his empathy for island folk. She’s an excellent character—ambitious enough to want to influence how her people are portrayed in Hollywood, naive enough to think she can really do it. With Lacy leading the way we’ll go anywhere. Tahiti? Tuscany? You bet.

French Polynesia, Italy, Tahiti, Papeete, Viareggio, Paperback Library, Ed Lacy, Leonard Zinberg, Charles Copeland, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

November 28 2022

FIXED RIGHT UP

For every job there's a perfect tool.

In Ed Lacy’s 1961 boxing drama The Big Fix, the fix is defnitely in, and in the worst way possible. Tommy Cork, a thirty-something middleweight boxer who in his prime battled Sugar Ray Robinson, becomes the pet project of a dilletante boxing manager who promises that with the best training, diet, and promotion Cork can reach the top again. Sounds good, but Tommy has unwittingly become the focus of a deadly scam, a plan to find some desperate boxer with a reputation for ugly losses, make a show of training him for high profile bouts, all the while taking out a life insurance policy on him, then having a hammerfisted accomplice kill him in the ring. Since the murder will happen before a crowd, there will be no suspicion of foul play, particularly for a pug known for fighting stubbornly and hitting the canvas hard.

But nothing is straightforward in Lacy’s hands. Tommy’s wife May, hopeful for a better life, gets into trouble with violent numbers runners, an aspiring writer sees the couple as the perfect pathetic characters to be the focus of a novel, an ex-boxer cop starts to get wise to the murder scheme, and other twists come from nowhere to infinitely complicate the tale. Despite the subplots, as readers you know the only fitting climax is one that takes place in the ring, and Lacy pushes the story inexorably toward that showdown, hapless Tommy facing off against a man who plans to kill him with a relentless assault, or if possible a single blow. If he’s going to have help, he’ll need to provide it himself. As usual, Lacy tells a good story. He’s reliably full of excellent ideas. That also goes for Ernest Chiriacka, who painted the eye-catching cover.

New York City, Pyramid Books, Ed Lacy, Leonard Zinberg, Darcy, Ernest Chiriacka, cover art, literature, boxing

Vintage Pulp

March 13 2020

A CASE OF YOU

The CDC says we should stay at least six feet apart, but baby, my lips can't reach that far.

CDC, our many non-U.S. readers may need to know, stands for the Centers for Disease Control, and while maybe it’s not in the best taste to kid about coronavirus, when did taste ever matter us? There’s virus rampant where we live, but luckily we don’t have to leave our place, which is the benefit of having weeks of food in the larder and your entire work life online. Our last foray outside was for PSGP’s birthday party last Saturday, for which we made lots of hand sanitizer out of aloe gel, anti-microbial lavender oil, and vodka. These props were intended as a little joke, but our ulterior motive was to remind everyone to take the precautions recommended by health authorities. We predicted that night would be the last hurrah around here for a while and we were right, as now schools, sporting events, and other gatherings of people have been restricted. We’re glad we had one last get-together before those changes came, and so far—fingers crossed—all fifty or so people that showed up seem to be fine.

Other people who are getting in a last get-together are the couple on this cover of Len Zinberg’s Strange Desires, originally published in 1946 as What D’ya Know for Sure. This great piece was painted for Avon’s 1949 edition by Ann Cantor, who we’ve featured several times, including on Maurice Leblanc’s Wanton Venus, one of our personal favorites. Zinberg was the real name of prolific U.S. author Ed Lacy, whose boxing opus Go for the Body we just talked about last week. No boxing in this one, unless clinches count. This is about Hollywood, making movies, industry ambition, redemption for the damaged, and those sorts of things. Just like in Go for the Body the narrative makes a surprising turn near the end, and just like in The Woman Aroused, the story hinges on a disturbed femme fatale. Like we said‚ Zinberg/Lacy was prolific, which we guess means he borrowed from himself occasionally. We should know—we’ve been borrowing from ourselves here for twelve years. More Zinberg/Lacy coming soon.

Avon Publications, Len Zinberg, Leonard Zinberg, Ed Lacy, Ann Cantor, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

March 6 2020

A BOXING MATCH

Oh, I plan to go for his body, alright. Particularly below the belt. I hope he plans the same for mine.

Ed Lacy is a fascinating writer, a fearless conceptualizer who sought unique angles for his vivid, often racially charged tales. His 1954 novel Go for the Body is a story of amazing imagination dealing with an ex-boxer and would-be promotor named Ken Francine who runs across a black American boxer in Paris. Francine already knows this other boxer, Bud Stewart, from Stateside. In fact, Stewart was the reason Francine retired, a decision brought on by a brutal ass-whipping that exposed his deficiencies in the ring. Now, years later in Paris, Francine sees an opportunity for profit, and begins pushing Stewart up the ladder in the European fight racket. The text on the cover art is deceptive. The book isn’t really about the love story, “DIFFERENT” or otherwise, between Stewart and his beautiful wife. It’s about Francine, local politics, the dirty work of promoting boxers, and murder.

In the hands of a brilliant writer this could have been an all-time classic. Don’t get us wrong—it’s still enjoyable. Lacy evokes the atmosphere of Paris effortlessly by sharing minute details. He never crosses the line into travelogue. A quip about the trendiness and expense of Perrier followed by a local’s aside that the pipes in European cities weren’t always great is enough to plant the idea in the reader’s head that fizzy bottled water became popular because it was known to be clean. Another example is how Lacy doesn’t bother to describe any of the geography or people of Champs-Élysées, but simply notes that you see big American cars there. He makes clever choices like these throughout Go for the Body, never taking the obvious route, instead relying on readers’ ingrained knowledge of Paris from popular culture to fill in the blanks.

His plot does the same. Guessing which direction the narrative will go will likely prove fruitless. Of course, certain aspects are required, such as the Parisian flavor, the post-war malaise, and the nostalgia for a lost love. And naturally, boxing novels nearly always lead up to a big fight, and this one does too, in Milan, Italy. But there’s far more on the line in that final bout than any reader could possibly suspect when the book begins. That’s the main reason we give Go for the Body a thumbs up—its scope. Lacy is no Faulkner or Malamud, and his main character Ken Francine is confoundingly slow-witted at times (as an ex-fighter who was literally beaten into retirement it’s possible he’s not supposed to be very bright), but the tale delivers a solid punch. It may not knock you for a loop, but in the end the decision goes in its favor.

France, World War II, Paris, Milan, Avon Publications, Ed Lacy, Leonard Zinberg, cover art, literature, boxing

Vintage Pulp

December 8 2019

MORDER MOST FOWL

McGinnis sells sea tale with a seashore.

West German publishing company Heyne Bücher makes good use of art by Robert McGinnis on the cover of Der Flamingo Mörder, which was a translation of Charles Williams’ 1958 novel The Concrete Flamingo, aka All the Way. This beachy painting originally appeared in Argosy in April 1961 as an illustration for Ed Lacy’s story “The Naked Blanco,” but it’s a perfect match for Williams, who became a gifted crafter of oceangoing thrillers, among them Dead Calm, And the Deep Blue Sea, Scorpion Reef, and Aground. And yes, we know, by the way, that technically (not even technically, but actually) a fowl is a bird domesticated for its eggs, which flamingos aren’t, but you try thinking up headers for these posts for eleven straight years. Anyway, the entire McGinnis painting from which the cover art was borrowed is below. And as always you can learn more about everyone involved by clicking their keywords at bottom.

West Germany, Heyne Bücher, Argosy, Charles Williams, Robert McGinnis, Ed Lacy, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

October 11 2018

END OF THE LINE

In the naked city there are a million reasons to kill and die.

In Dead End two crooked cops end up with a million dollars in dirty money and decide to ditch their jobs and flee the country. But their law enforcement colleagues are after them, so first they hole up in an old Prohibition hideout to let the heat dissipate. How long will they stay in this little room? As long as it takes. The older cop Doc suggests months. The younger cop Bucky is going crazy in days. You know for a certaintly that this partnership isn’t going to end well. Lacy is up and down as a writer but this is him on the upswing. Originally published as Be Careful How You Live in 1959, this Pyramid paperback appeared in 1960 with cover art by Ernest Chiriacka.

Pyramid Books, Ed Lacy, Leonard Zinberg, Ernest Chiriacka, Darcy, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

October 10 2018

A DETECTIVE’S BEST FRIEND

I love fire escapes. I don't know if they've saved many lives, but they've helped me ruin quite a few.

Above is another cover for Ed Lacy’s breakthrough detective thriller Room To Swing, with the hero lurking on a fire escape. They should change the names of those things, considering how often they’re used for things other than escaping fires. The art here is by an unknown, and like the previous cover (though we didn’t point it out at the time) shows a white detective. Or one that can be taken for white. But the main character Toussaint Marcus Moore is black. In fact he’s so dark even his girlfriend gives him a hard time about it. Clearly both publishing companies knew the book would sell fewer copies with an identifiably black cover star. The whitewash is an ironic side note to a book that directly discusses racism, but mid-century book covers, even those having nothing to do with race, often deceived consumers, so this is not an anomaly. Both covers are high quality art pieces. See the other one here.

Pyramid Books, Ed Lacy, Leonard Zinberg, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

September 17 2018

SWING LESSONS

A Harlem detective learns the rules of engagement in pre-civil rights America.

Ed Lacy is credited by many as having created the first African American detective, Harlem gumshoe Toussaint Marcus Moore. Room to Swing is the novel in which this uniquely named character debuted. The set-up for the plot is also unique. The producer of an unsolved crimes television show called You—Detective! has located a fugitive she wants to arrest on air. She hires Toussaint to keep an eye on this ratings goldmine and make sure he’s still around when she and her film crew are ready to spring their trap. Sounds simple, but in 1958 a black detective following a white man 24/7 will run into problems, considering he can’t safely go to all the same places. Hell, he couldn’t comfortably go to all the same places even today.

And if being a cop magnet isn’t bad enough for Toussaint, having a white woman as a client is even more problematic, since they can barely be seen in public together. This is true even in New York and Ohio, where the action takes place. Although the northern U.S. was not part of the Jim Crow system, outside of large cities apartheid generally reigned. Small town Ohio is no different from Alabama for Toussaint. Even getting lunch or using a pay phone is often difficult. Speaking to a white man without calling him “Sir” generally leads to trouble, and being referred to as “boy” in return is standard practice. All of which raises the question: Why did this deep-pocketed producer hire a black detective at all? She has her reasons.

Room to Swing won Lacy the coveted Edgar Award, though we wouldn’t say the book is brilliantly written. But it takes readers into fresh territory for a detective novel, and Toussaint is portrayed humanistically and empathetically. The book exemplifies the idea that it’s possible for anybody to write about anybody else, regardless of race. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a luxury that was often afforded to any but white writers back then, but it certainly should have been. All sorts of insights might have been possible. Room to Swing has plenty of those, and if you can find this Pyramid paperback edition with Robert Maguire cover art, all the better.

Harlem, Pyramid Books, Edgar Award, Ed Lacy, Leonard Zinberg, Robert Maguire, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

January 9 2018

WILD SIDE

Stop playing hard to get! I just want to make sweet love to you!

The Woman Aroused tells the story of a man who allows a confused and mysterious woman to stay with him, then finds he can’t get her out of his apartment. He basically can’t even get her off his sofa. The woman calls herself Lee, but that isn’t her real name. She has no family, no friends, no past. She has a strange accent that hints at origins somewhere in Europe, but conversely she has an American flag tattoo on her forearm.

It emerges that Lee is short for “liebchen,” a nickname from when she was a worker and sex slave in a Polish concentration camp. The tattoo is a cover-up for her Nazi serial number. But even after these discoveries the issue remains how to get rid of her. The narrator is no match for her physically because she’s six feet tall and labor hardened, he has limited hope of outsmarting her, and due to complications he can’t involve the police. Quite a pickle, and quite an inversion of the usual male-female relationship found in mid-century fiction.

Ed Lacey, aka Ed Lacy, née Leonard Zinberg is not a polished writer, at least not working under this pseudonym, but he certainly dreams up thought provoking tales. This one is just weird enough to sustain interest throughout its short length. The cover on this Avon edition, which gives vivid form to the physical turning of the tables depicted in the narrative, is by famed pin-up artist William Randall, aka Bill Randall, and the copyright is 1951.

World War II, Avon Publications, Ed Lacy, Ed Lacey, William Randall, Bill Randall, Leonard Zinberg, cover art, literature, nazis

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

October 11

1976—China Coup Thwarted

The new head of the Chinese Communist Party, Hua Goufeng, snuffs out a coup led by Chairman Mao’s widow Jiang Qing and three other party members. They become known as the Gang of Four, and are tried, found guilty of treason, and receive death sentences that are later commuted to lengthy prison terms.

October 11

1987—Loch Ness Expedition Ends

A sonar exploration of Scotland’s Loch Ness, called Operation Deepscan, ends after a week without finding evidence that the legendary Loch Ness Monster exists. While the flotilla of boats had picked up three sonar contacts indicating something large in the waters, these are considered to be detections of salmon schools or possibly seals.

October 10

1971—London Bridge Goes Up

After being sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, London Bridge reopens in the resort town of Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

October 10

1975—Burton and Taylor Marry Again

British actor Richard Burton and American screen star Elizabeth Taylor secretly remarry sixteen months after their divorce, then jet away to a second honeymoon in Chobe Game Park in Botswana.

October 9

1967—ChÃ© Executed in Bolivia

A day after being captured, Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara is executed in Bolivia. In an attempt to make it appear as though he had been killed resisting Bolivian troops, the executioner shoots Guevara with a machine gun, wounding him nine times in the legs, arm, shoulder, throat, and chest.

October 8

1918—Sgt. York Becomes a Hero

During World War I, in the Argonne Forest in France, America Corporal Alvin C. York leads an attack on a German machine gun nest that kills 25 and captures 132. He is a corporal during the event, but is promoted to sergeant as a result. He also earns Medal of Honor from the U.S., the Croix de Guerre from the French Republic, and the Croce di Guerra from Italy and Montenegro. Stateside, he is celebrated as a hero, and Hollywood even makes a movie entitled Sergeant York, starring Gary Cooper.

October 8

1956—Larsen Pitches Perfect Game

The New York Yankees’ Don Larsen pitches a perfect game in the World Series against hated rivals the Brooklyn Dodgers. It is the only perfect game in World Series history, as well as the only no-hitter.