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L’aristo et le fantóme, by André Héléna (Editions de la flamme d’or, 1954).
From eBay.
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uwmspeccoll · 9 months
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Steamy Saturday
An obviously gay but crafty detective, Francis Morely; suggestive banter between Morely and his straight, ex-football player sidekick, Tiger Olsen; a camera behind a two-way mirror in a notorious bathhouse run by the sinister Joe Cannelli; blackmail and murder of privileged high society members; and the blond, sultry "nymphomaniac on the make," Vivien Holden -- this pulp novel, The Gay Detective, published in 1961 by Saber Books in Fresno, California, is all kinds of steamy!
The suggestive cover art bears the caption, “Francis and Tiger found out what they needed to know. The Trick now was to get the nude Vivien out of the bathhouse and to safety.” The excerpt on the flyleaf has Francis "mincing a bit towards his new car . . . 'Oh, I can see that you're going to be a big help to me. . . . So, there you great hulk. Now get moving.' Glancing around to be sure they were unobserved, Tiger put a hand on his hip and flipped his other wrist. 'And whoops to you, too,' he said with his boyish grin." And the quote on the back cover makes a reverse implication of St. Paul's statement, "there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.”
Quite tame by today's standards, The Gay Detective, considered the first published gay American murder mystery novel, was written by Lou Rand, a pseudonym for Lou Hogan (born Louis Randall, 1910-1976), a professional chef, columnist for Gourmet magazine, and author of The Gay Cookbook (1965). Saber Books was one of several imprints owned by Fresno author and publisher Sanford Aday, a notorious purveyor of steamy pulp fiction, who was eventually tried and convicted of distributing obscene material.
View other pulp fiction posts.
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kurtbusiek · 7 months
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What are some good PI/mystery novels you enjoy that you can recommend?
When I felt in the mood for a comfort read, I’d often turn to Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder novels or his Bernie Rhodenbarr series -- the Scudders are dark, the Bernies are funny, but a stack of those would keep me reading not just for the plots but to see the leads and the ongoing supporting characters interact and develop over time. Others that work well for me: John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport novels (and his Virgil Flowers novels, which are sort of a second-track for the Davenports, interacting often) have a very satisfying sense of work-related bullshitting -- the mystery always gets addressed, but the crime-solvers have a great sense of co-workers who’ve been together for long enough to comfortably banter back and forth. Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller novels work very well as series reads too -- it’s actually worth reading Connelly in publication order, because even when he starts a different series or does a standalone novel, characters from those books wind up showing up in other series books, so it’s rewarding to take in the whole universe of Connelly crime. [Sandford does this too -- there are a few novels that focus on other characters and then they show up in the Lucasverse, which is enjoyable.] Robert Crais’s Elvis Cole mysteries are not only enjoyable reads, but the characters and mood develop a lot over the series, so they make good multi-book reads, too -- and again, there are characters who start out in their own novels and then feed into the Elvisverse. The standalones that don’t connect tend to be extremely good, as well.
Donald E. Westlake’s Dortmunder series and his Parker series (under the name Richard Stark) are very much not PI novels -- both characters are professional thieves, though Dortmunder’s world is one of comedic disaster and Parker’s is tough and spare and mean, and both are great. There’s even one book (JIMMY THE KID) where the Dortmunder gang decides to follow a crime plan from a Parker novel and the chapters alternate between the tough-guy procedural and the comic everything-goes-wrong. Dick Francis’s racing mysteries rarely have series leads (there are a couple of leads that recur here and there), but the novels all take place in the horseracing world and the leads tend to be similar, so reading through a stack of them can be a lot of fun too. I’m sure there are plenty I’m leaving out -- I like the first 13 or so Spenser novels by Robert B. Parker, but think that after that they largely get less and less interesting, though the banter is always readable. Laura Lippmann’s Tess Monaghan novels have a lot of engaging growth and change to them, too. Chelsea Cain’s Archie Sheridan/Gretchenn Lowell serial-killer novels are unsettling but, again, have change and growth over the series. When I was younger I loved John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee, but I fear those haven’t aged well. Hammett and Chandler are the classics of the form, but the Continental Op doesn’t change or grow, and I never read Chandler’s novels in chronological order. I also remember scarfing down Leslie Charteris’s Saint novels and Manning Coles’s Tommy Hambledon, but haven’t read either for years. I’m still sure I’m forgetting series I love, but that ought to be a respectable list. As for where to start in all these series, I’d say start at the beginning for most of them. Maybe start four or five books in with Lucas Davenport, because he got more interesting as he went. The same might be true for Elvis Cole, and with Robert B. Parker I’d say start with MORTAL STAKES. If you like them you’ll eventually want to read the early ones, and they’re not bad, it’s just that the series kinda rev up a few novels in as the writers find their footing.
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fortressofserenity · 28 days
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Appealing to the other girls
When it comes to the North American comics industry’s woes, I feel some of it has to do with appealing so much to a certain audience’s taste to the point where it’s going to be real hard trying out something else without experiencing backlash. Some of the problem might have to do with how superhero-centric the print sector of the North American comics industry is, it might be changing for the better when it comes to webcomics. But I don’t think it’s substantial enough to attract anybody else who would be more interested in anything else that has little to do with superheroes at the very least, though you’d have to hire more people who’re interested in those kinds of stories and topics.
Maybe publishers like DC and Marvel are trying their hardest to do what I suggested, the best they can do about it given they don’t want to alienate their longtime readers. But when it comes to some readers not getting to read the other kinds of stories they want to read, it needn’t to be genre fiction as it could involve stories about say dogs harassing wildlife, church cats or garment workers. Though unfortunately whatever stories that focus on any of these subject matters are likely to be really rare, at worst they might as well be so nonexistent that this is likely why readers who’d like to find the stories they’d like to read end up reading something else altogether.
I’m projecting my preferences here but you should know where I’m coming from, since I don’t read comics that often and I actually tend to read a lot of nonfiction. Nonfiction that’s based on the things I like reading and want to read myself, but that’s to give you an idea of how my reading preferences are pretty underrepresented in comics. This is likely true for other female readers and any other reader in general, where their own reading preferences are also very underrepresented. It’s like if you have a lot of comic book stories involving colourful battles and preternatural abilities deployed in them, but not enough stories that involve criminal investigation that’s going to alienate those who’d be interested in that subject matter.
It’s no different from what I experience where there’s not a lot of comics that I can think of that focuses on dog predation on wildlife, despite making decent appearances in nonfiction (both news reports and academic studies). The one fictional example that I can think of that focuses on this, or at least close to it, would be Watership Down and even then it’s an animated movie that’s adapted from a prose novel. Even if this is a subject matter that has important implications for conservation, in that dog owners need to be more careful around their pets because they could easily endanger a vulnerable species at any point, it’s not a subject matter that I could easily find in comics the way I would with nonfiction sources.
There are actually instances of publishers like DC and Marvel using professionals outside of the comics geek circles to write comics, most notably people like Ian Rankin and Denise Mina. But when it comes to the North American comics industry being mostly focused on providing genre fiction, particularly the speculative variety, it’s going to alienate everybody else who’re interested in something else to read. I believe if DC and Marvel were sincere in attracting other readers, they should be churning out more magazines and stories like Gotham Central. Gotham Central could easily be the one DC comic to lure in crime fiction readers with, since what the story’s about is familiar territory to them.
Both DC and Marvel did have a habit of publishing stories outside of the DC and Marvel universes, they still do to some extent but much of it’s focused on well-established franchises rather than publishing stories that would interest other readers. Especially these days where it’s easier to do comics based on either Marvel, DC or any one of the other established brands within the Warner Bros and Disney corporations, this is pretty much why Marvel publishes Star Wars comics and more recently Alien comics too. But not something like doing comics adaptations of something like Jemima Shore, though somebody else has done the same for Nancy Drew in fairness.
You could say that a character like Jemima Shore is too obscure to get an audience in comics, but then again Adam Dagliesh is better known than her and he himself hasn’t starred in any comics adaptation that I know of. So the real problem lies with how North American publishers generally pander more to speculative fiction enthusiasts a lot and not anybody else who want to read something else in comics, it could be something like everyday life but also crime fiction or cats and sailors. It could also involve what’s like working in dressmaking that while there are comics that do revolve around it, it’s also unfortunately rare if it does exist at all and likely the same with sailors and cats. So this is why the North American comics industry has difficulty attracting different readers.
The North American comics industry is almost too focused on satiating the speculative fiction enthusiast’s tastes without regarding the reading tastes of other people, including those who may not be interested in the fantastical to begin with. While a compromise is doable, I don’t think it’s going to be easy publishing other stories without hiring writers who’re interested in anything else to create those for like-minded people. But that would mean those kinds of people, both as writers and readers, are very underrepresented. So underrepresented in the comics industry that they might as well not exist, so it’s easier to cater to speculative fiction enthusiasts this way.
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notolux · 2 months
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Started reading 'Murder in the Family' by Cara Hunter and if all these years watching Bones, Criminal Minds, and Law & Order: SVU have prepared me for anything - it's this.
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kekwcomics · 2 years
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IT RHYMES WITH LUST
A 1950 crime-thriller-potboiler 'picture book' - a precursor to the graphic novel - written under a pseudonym by Arnold Drake (creator of Deadman, Doom Patrol, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc) and Leslie Waller.
Line art by the legendary Afro-American 'good girl' artist, Matt Baker.
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gravitydefyingtears · 2 years
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犯罪心理 | Fan Zui Xin Li | Criminal Psychology
Author: 长洱 Chang Er
Novel: http://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=2575714
Word Count: 1,240,092 CN characters
Chapters: 301 + 9 (extras)
Audio Drama: https://www.missevan.com/mdrama/21594
Lead VAs: 姜广涛 Jiang Guangtao & 赵成晨 Zhao Chengchen
Three seasons
Images are cover art from various audio drama episodes
… … …
One Line Summary: The story of a psychologist who is dealt rather terrible cards in life.
Tags: danmei, mystery, crime, shou POV, modern AU
Rating: 18+
… … …
Translated Summary (from JJWXC)
One day, while Lin Chen was reading a book, Xing Conglian asked him a question.
“You’re a psychologist. So, can you find out for me what kind of person I’m suited to marry?”
At the time, Lin Chen remembered telling him that love was the hardest thing to assess in this world. Even a psychologist would not be able to predict it because there were innumerable variables throughout the progression of two people’s romance.
Xing Conglian had then asked, “What are the variables?”
Back then, Lin Cheng thought: a variable was me thinking you were just an ordinary police officer who loved to crack open a beer at a street-side stall and snack on spicy crawfish. Yet I didn’t know you were actually…
Or that a variable was: I didn’t know I would fall in love with you, nor when you would fall in love with me.
… … …
1. Lin Chen is the shou
2. Mary Sue elements (?)
3. Because of censorship, the setting is modern AU
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theimaginauts · 2 years
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PARKER
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Art by DARWYN COOKE
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sad-stoned-gay · 2 years
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Newest additions to my "shelf".
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rjnello · 1 year
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Greenway Day
It was such a great weather day (and you need to take advantage of those here in the spring!) yesterday we took our eldest nephew (who had been visiting with us since Friday) up to Agatha Christie’s Greenway estate, which is owned now by the National Trust. It is about a 25 minute ferry trip from Dartmouth’s town jetty… [Photo by me, March 2023.] 1) Three books we bought in the shop there. I…
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Something In The Shadows, by Vin Packer (Gold Medal, 1961).
From eBay.
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thundergrace · 2 years
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Woooo!!!
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She outdid herself with this one! You betta write, Angela!
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stefito0o · 1 year
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Not your classics challenge
1. Pride and Prejudice
I picked up this book as I find it in most crime novels of this type the main recurring character is usually very proud and at the same time there is almost always some prejudice against them to get involved in the case.
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author-alley · 8 months
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HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO KEEP A SECRET?
Her Secrets, COMING SOON!
Fire was a powerful force. It can be humanity's best friend or worst nightmare. Tonight she prays it will be her friend. She needs it to get rid of the evidence.
Ava Oursler was always fascinated by fire. Flames held power over man. Ava used to be an arson investigator who could accidentally set her toaster on fire. Now she works homicide cases but will inevitably still set her toast on fire. Caffeine and chocolate hold Ava together as she balances a demanding career with being a single mother. When an old love, journalist Peter Newport, reappears during an intense case Ava is thrown into a stressful whirlwind.
Peter Newport is an ex-journalist who moved back to his hometown for a fresh start. When a spree of fire leaves poisoned bodies in their wake, Peter's curiosity gets the better of him. Running into his college sweetheart Ava, Peter and Ava team up to solve the crimes before they become the next victims.
CHECK OUT THE AUTHOR'S WEBSITE
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pulpsandcomics2 · 2 years
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It Takes a Thief
Three book series from 1969 based on the TV show starring Robert Wagner.
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girlatlas · 1 year
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