Pulp Poem of the Week

What the hell!

Two hundred bucks a week,

and all I'd have to do for it

was occasionally kill

somebody for him.

"When do I start?" I said.

Bruno Fischer

The Fast Buck

1952

Pulp Poem of the Week

Dead men

are heavier

than broken hearts.

Raymond Chandler

The Big Sleep

1939

Pulp Poem of the Week

Ostensibly a lawyer,
he maintained
a luxurious Hollywood office.
He even kept office hours.
But he hadn't appeared
in a courtroom for years.
He didn't have to.
He knew where too many bodies,
male and female,
had spent their lost weekends.
His was a nasty business
but he never had trouble
with his conscience.
He had none.

Day Keene
Framed in Guilt
1949

Book Review: Gil Brewer, Wild (1958)

Acceptable, though not memorable. Private detective Lee Baron moves home to Florida to take over his recently deceased father's one-man detective business. Almost immediately he is hired by an old flame, Ivor Hendrix, who has become fearful of her husband. Lee seeks out the husband and instead finds an armless body, and things escalate from there--plot elements include a bank robbery, a thug with a head the size of a watermelon, and Ivor's nymphomaniacal sister. The plot meanders a bit as Lee wanders among a cluster of locales in the Tampa Bay area, trying to figure out what's going on. Characters are a bit thin even for this genre, but Brewer keeps things moving and hopes that you don't notice too much. Worth reading, but not if you haven't read A Killer Is Loose or The Brat or The Red Scarf. Grade: C+

Pulp Poem of the Week

What was that line

about walking a mile

in another man's shoes?

Oh yeah:

By the time he figures out

you've screwed him over,

you're a mile away, and

you've got his shoes.

David J. Schow

Gun Work

2008