Bodies in Bedlam - Richard S. Prather
One of the greatest writers of classic American pulp crime fiction, the works of Richard S. Prather have been largely overlooked, but his Shell Scott series, running to around 40 novels and a number of novellas and short stories featuring his LA private investigator, Sheldon Scott, deserve greater recognition. Perhaps it's because there is often a tongue-in-cheek humour, a certain sauciness, Shell spending as much time ogling and bedding numerous beautiful women as he does investigating crime, that the stories are not held in the same esteem now as other pulp authors working through the 50s, 60s and 70s, but there is great crime writing here, the books filled with memorable lines as witty as anything in Raymond Chandler. Bodies in Bedlam, 1951 Opening line: "It was Babel, and Babylon, and Baghdad galloping, and Lady Godiva in the middle naked as an artificial eye on a white-satin spread. And not a sign of a horse." There's no party like a Hollywood party and being a...