Get ready to get your groove on as we look at pulp fiction with a dance motif in their titles. I first would like to point out a big thanks to Kenn Minter, the man behind The Percy Trout Hour, for sending me some great books. Donations are always appreciated for this column since these books don’t just grow on trees. So while I practice my froog and monkey, enjoy the reads.

DANCE WITH THE DEAD by Richard S. Prather – Sorry, Deadheads, but this is not about the RFK ‘91 show. No, this 1960 novel is part of the long-running but hard-to-find (at least for me) Shell Scott series. We lost Prather earlier this year and he will be sorely missed, because they sure don’t write mysteries like this anymore.

This one’s centered around the good ol’ days of men’s magazines, where women really looked like women and not airbrushed fantasies. All through the story, I had one girl in mind: Playboy’s Miss July 1959. The story is pretty straightforward: While on a trip to Hawaii, Shell runs into a Hugh Hefner-type by the name of Webb, who runs a magazine called Wow. Webb seems to be in a bind, having just gotten married and his wife having second thoughts.

So once back in California, Shell is asked to look into it. But then Webb gets cold feet and tells Shell to forget it. That’s when the shoe drops. When Shell is talking to Webb on the phone, he hears the man get killed by gunshot. Shell shows up, only to be accused by the cops and, of course, taking a crucial piece of evidence: a photo of a girl’s bottom with four freckles. Yeah, that’s the clue that will crack the case. See what I mean? This type of stuff can’t fly anymore, thanks to a bunch of P.C. prudes.

The novel throws in some nice twists and other great surprises, with Shell investigating each girl that’s posed in Wow’s pages to a case of amnesia that really knocks him for a loop. Prather writes a story that flows so easily, all you want to do is pick up another one once you’re done.

THE EVER-LOVING BLUES by Carter Brown – Yes, another Carter Brown novel for the simple reason that they are just so fun and breezy to read. As much as I’ve enjoyed Brown’s other books, this 1961 offering is cliché city.

Danny Boyd, a Hollywood private eye working for a movie studio, is sent to bring back a missing actress. Enter cliché #1, actress Gloria Van Raven, whose acting talent is all in her hips and chest. Seems she ran off to Florida with cliché #2, a financier named Woolrich, who is supposed to be loaded, but, of course, is flat broke and owes money to everyone – including cliché #3, a mob guy with two goons with the names of Fingers and Meatball.

But it doesn’t end there, folks. You also get the little-used cliché #4, the junkie jazz musician. Throw in the actress’ private secretary with the Bond girl-esque name of April Showers, and it’s just a bit of fun. I knew not to expect high art, but this one just feels like it was so weighted down with archetypes that it was just self-parody. The surprises really aren’t that surprising, but let’s give Brown some slack: One subpar book by him is still better then some of the other garbage I’ve covered, like…

UP-TIGHT by Dick Winfield – Here’s another case of a book not aging well at all, stuck in its 1964 vibe. It deals with a sad excuse for a private detective: Doolie, whose career consists mostly of serving summons. Mike Hammer, he is not; heck, Inspector Closeau was more of a detective.

The big selling point of this pathetic crap is that Doolie has a spirit named Daphne who is hot for him called Daphne. Yes, a ghost-like muse is all a-flutter for our detective, but he can’t see her and he is also the only one that can hear her. All Daphne wants to do is have sex and show Doolie all the ways of the erogenous world. She pulls him in and out of trouble, all the while trying to keep him aroused.

I’ll give everyone fair warning again: Avoid this crap. It goes nowhere fast. The story just goes through the motions, with the big case involving a missing girl. I would go on and on about how awful it is, but it might make some of you waste your time and money.

So why did I pick this novel up? Are you people blind? It’s the fault of the cover – the only good thing about it.

Next time: Here come the third-stringers! –Bruce Grossman

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• MURDER IS A PACKAGE DEAL by Carter Brown
• THE NEVER-WAS GIRL by Carter Brown
• THE PEDDLER by Richard S. Prather
• THE WANTON by Carter Brown