Nightmare Alibi -- Harry Whittington

There's a great story about this book, somewhere or other, and we're never going to know it. Here's the start of the plot. In 1963, Harry Whittington published a novel called Cora was a Nympho. Great title, right? But the book had very little to do with Cora's being a nympho. A couple of years ago, I bought a copy of Nightmare Alibi (and paid a bazillion bucks for it; don't tell Judy). It was published nearly 10 years after Cora was a Nympho, but if ever a book lived up to that title, it's Nightmare Alibi. Cora is the woman the main character falls for, and she's insatiable. Her unquenchable desire is, in fact, the cause of all the book's complications and the protagonist's ultimate downfall.

The protagonist is a cop, and a good one. He just can't find the Right Woman, the one that will make him complete. Until, that is, he finds Cora, who believe me is in all other respects the Wrong Woman, as you'd expect in a noir novel. And this is noir, no doubt about it. The cop walks right down that road to Hell.

The ending would have been even more powerful, I think, if the book weren't also hardcore pornography. Because the book is that, too. Is it ever. You name it, it's here. Early and often. Looking at the photo of Whittington in this post, you'd never guess he had such a dirty mind.