Carter Brown (1923–1985)

Well, I was looking for mid-century sleaze (i.e. a potboiler, maybe porn) and I found it (not the porn). This one is a straight detective tale where the schlubby detective is surrounded by sexy, young, voluptuous women (all the female characters in this novel are of this description) who mostly want to jump his bones for no real reason, well, one has a reason, but its plot-centric. It does have a healthy dose of male-fantasy/borderline misogyny throughout and any chance to objectify the female characters (there are no real characters here besides the wisecracking detective btw) is taken by the author, which I find funny more than offensive because it was so frequent from beginning to end. Essentially, all the women are diluted femme fatales. The promise of the involvement of an occult and/or supernatural center in the mystery made by the cover and blurbs only exists to be explained away by the end but a “satanic ceremony” is fitted into the story. Brownie points scored there, I guess.
The singer was wearing a turquoise silk-knit suit that emphasized the deep thrust of her breasts and the full curve of her hips. Her midnight-blue hair cascaded over her shoulders wildly, and her big green eyes shone with a kind of luminous passion. [pg.47]
The points this novel scores were that it was a quick and easy read, the male gaze in this book was so intense as to become comedic, the mystery is not a very good one (it is pretty obvious who the bad players are as soon as you meet them), and I found the era of its setting, at least in my head, added to the kitschiness of the story. I also enjoyed that there were some traditional detective genre fisticuffs and gunplay. The story became as sexually stimulating as possible without crossing the line into sex when the story would otherwise get boring or when the opportunity arose. All-in-all I would recommend this one if you’re in the mood for a sleazy detective story.
“Okay, Poopsie.” She sauntered out of the room and the close-up view of her undulating bikinied bottom was an erotic symphony all by itself. [pg. 122]… (more)