Pulp Poem of the Week

You can label almost anybody

by finding out what time

they go to work in the morning.

Robert Bloch

The Scarf

1947

Book Review: Robert Bloch, The Scarf (1947)

While The Scarf is not the tour de force I had hoped for, it is nevertheless the best of the four Robert Bloch novels that I have read. The titular scarf belongs to narrator Dan Morley, an aspiring writer whose psychological problems, especially with women, are the result of his unhealthy boyhood relationship with Miss Frazer, his unmarried schoolteacher. The scarf is Morley's keepsake from his memorable last encounter with Miss Frazer, after which he ran away from home. The story follows Dan and his burgeoning writing career from Chicago to New York to Hollywood. My taste runs to the noir side of noir, and The Scarf was plenty dark enough for me, but I found Bloch's execution lacking, especially in the book's regrettably contrived dénouement. Grade: B

Book Review: Robert Bloch, Shooting Star (1958) & Spiderweb (1954)

Truly inspired packaging from Hard Case Crime. This two-fer makes me misty-eyed for bygone days that I am too young to remember. Now if only the novels were better. . . . On a micro level, these books are well done. Robert Bloch has writerly chops to spare, and I enjoyed almost every page. But on a macro level, these books are completely forgettable. The protagonist of Shooting Star is Mark Clayburn, a small-time literary agent who, because he works in the true-crime field, also has a private investigator's license. This combination has interesting possibilities, but they go untapped. The literary agent fades mostly from view; the private investigator takes center stage; and Clayburn emerges as a super-low-cal Philip Marlowe wallowing in the muck of Hollywood. Also set in California, Spiderweb traffics at first in the noir-friendly universe of psychic charlatans but then veers into a fairly conventional blackmail story. In this realm, try William Lindsay Gresham's Nightmare Alley or Cornell Woolrich's Night Has a Thousand Eyes instead. Grade: C+

Pulp Poem of the Week

He cursed us in a low,

steady, monotonous voice,

ripping his words

off back-alley fences,

off privy walls.

Robert Bloch

Spiderweb

1954

Pulp Poem of the Week

The lights were coming on,

twinkling in Glendale,

flickering over Forest Lawn,

sparkling along San Fernando Road.

Los Angeles, that gaudy old

whore of a city was putting on

her jewels for a big night.

Robert Bloch

Shooting Star

1958

Pulp Poem of the Week

She leaned forward again

so quickly that

four things bobbed--

two of them earrings.

Robert Bloch

The Will to Kill

1954

Book Review: Robert Bloch, The Will to Kill (1954)

The noir is willing but the plot is weak. This is the story of Tom Kendall, a veteran of the Korean War who is prone to blacking out and waking up next to women who have been killed in the manner of Jack the Ripper. Is Tom a murderer? Is he the new "ripper"? The truth comes out in a series of discoveries/revelations that will have you rolling your eyes until you find yourself looking at your own brain. Any novel that combines amnesia with Saucy Jack has no right to be this bad. Grade: F