Shooting Star/Spiderweb

I love these Hard Case Crime books. They are exactly what I need after an exhausting day at work. Lot of plot, lots of fun, no political correctness. (To be fair, this particular book is from the 50's. But what I say is true of all sven or eight of the titles I've read.)

This was fast-paced fun and a great way to get back up to speed after reading "Zero Cool," the only dud put out by Richard Aleas at Hard Case Crime. What a wonderful idea -bringing back those old two-in-one, upside down cover paperbacks of my youth. Richard Bloch is always a sure thing. Thank you Hard Case Crime for putting me back on track. Do some more of these. This is cool! Too cool! Two-in-one action!

It has not been uncommon for writers to toil in the trenches of paperback originals, earning their keep by churning out potboilers quickly. It doesn't seem to happen as much nowadays, but back in the 1950s and 1960s, some big-name authors started out publishing this way: Lawrence Block, John MacDonald and Donald Westlake, for example. Then there was Robert Bloch, who would eventually be known primarily as the author of Psycho. A couple of earlier novels, Shooting Star and Spiderweb have been re-released by Hard Case Crime in a format from yesteryear: the flip book. On one side is Spiderweb, the tale of Eddie Haines, an Iowa transplant to Hollywood, who has realized his dreams of being an announcer are not going to work out as he had planned. He is rescued from the brink suicide by the Professor, Otto Hermann. Hermann is a scheming con artist who has designs on Haines's soothing voice. Soon, Haines is transformed into sham psychologist Judson Roberts and counseling the rich and famous. As Roberts, he provides openings for Hermann, but Haines also has a conscience. Hermann, however, has got evidence that implicates Haines in a murder, making escape from a life of crime difficult for the fake shrink. On the other side is Shooting Star, narrated by one-eyed private eye Mark Clayburn who is hired by old acquaintance Harry Bannock. Bannock has bought the rights to the movies of the late Western star Dick Ryan, which could be worth a mint if Ryan's reputation is salvaged. This requires Clayburn solving Ryan's murder and clearing the star of links to marijuana use. Of course, there are those who don't want the murder solved, leaving a trail of new bodies and endangering Clayburn himself. (The use of marijuana in this book has a bit of a "Reefer Madness" paranoia to it, but that's par for the course in this era.) Neither novel is a classic (explaining why both have been out of print for a long time), but Bloch is a good writer. Obviously, these were churned out quickly for a fast paycheck, but Bloch has the skills to make even this pulpy fiction fun to read. Nowadays, when a short mystery is often 300 pages, these come off as almost novellas, totaling just 314 pages between them; so for the cost of a single (cheap) paperback you can get two short books for the price of one.