When I learned that Shel Walker was actually Walt Sheldon, I thought I'd give this one a try. It's the old story of the guy who returns to the scene of the crime. He calls himself a couple or three names, but we'll stick with Lew Ross. Lew got into a fight at a night club and killed a man. Ten years later, he returns to the town and to the night club. This time he gets involved with a woman, some goons, and the crooked owner of the club and finds himself framed for murder. According to the back cover blurb, the book "is not only a high tension story of crime and violence. It is also the important story of what happens when thugs, gangsters and degenerates take over a small American town." Sure it is. But mostly it's about crime and violence. Check out the cover. Lew gets the crap kicked out of him several times, most memorably by the cops. And of course there's some gratuitous sex with an early '50s attitude that many of you might find appalling. Worth a look if you like the old paperbacks and aren't too bothered by that kind of thing, though. Not great, but it's so short you can read it in an hour or a bit more, so you don't have a lot to lose. Check it out.
3 comments:
I've read only two or three novels by Sheldon, but they have all been very good. My favourite was probably the early seventies GM, GOLD BAIT. It's the only epistolary novel in paperback format I've encountered.
That woman in the red dress looks a tad bored.
Yes, she at least seems rather improbably composed for anyone witnessing what she is who isn't the equivalent of a Bond evil mastermind.
Walt Sheldon's wry (and very occasional?) sf has been familiar to me for decades, so it's past time that I read some (or probably some more) of his cf...
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