I Hold the Four Aces

Helga Rolfe, the rich sex-obsessed woman from An Ace Up My Sleeve and The Joker in the Pack, returns to Europe from the Caribbean, and once more is the victim of some blackmail, this time at the hands of the blackmail from the first of the books, along with a professional gigolo who seduces rich old woman and makes off with their money. Helga isn't old, but she's susceptible nonetheless to this kind of thing. Here, not only is blackmail involved, but kidnapping.

I read these books back to back. Chase wrote a lot of books, and at a time when paperback racks were full of shorter novels, rather than the big things we have today. I suspect that many who would have once written these short, pulpy, punchy novels are today writing TV episodes show more and movies. In these three novels, Chase made the story longer by dividing them up, and they were published over a period of 6 years, during which time he wrote many others. The characters in these books are vivid and interesting, physically though not morally attractive. Helga doesn't seem to learn much from her mistakes, but that, and the lack of a moral center in these characters is what makes the books fun reading. show less