“Easy Curves” by Nick Baroni

Easy Curves by Nick Baroni was published circa 1950 by Curtis Warren Ltd.; it begins on page 3 and concludes on 128. The front cover illustration is by H. W. Perl, appearing to be one of his customary painted (colorized) photos of a model or actress. Sadly, my copy is in complete ruin: the front cover is severely ripped and torn. A chunk of the lower cover along the spine is missing. However, these are incredibly difficult to obtain, so I won’t complain.

The novel was one of many penned by Albert Edward Garrett (born 1917) since the 1940s, a career that spanned a few decades.

He frequently under the alias “Edgar Garrett,” this appearing first on “Headline Holiday” (John Crowther, 1944) and later resuscitated for his Western novels of the 1950s and 1960s.

For the mushroom publishers, he wrote under a slew of identified books, and no doubt, many more yet to be confirmed. Below are two examples of his crime titles:

Bart Banarto – The Big Panic – Edwin Self, circa 1953
Johnny Cello – Corruption’s Tutor – Scion, 1953

It’s not the focus of this article, however, to delve into this author’s literary career, for which there are many other sites already admirably suited, so let’s return to Easy Curves for a moment. This novel embraces all that is hard-boiled and sleaze. Loads of violence, bloodshed, tons of unscrupulous sex and rapes, etc.

Gangster boss Joey Grindle and his boys are in a tight spot straight into the novel. A rival gang has moved in and are blissfully mowing down their competition. Joey is a survivor, and while convincing a couple of his boys to give up and head out front, he blasts his way out the back and escapes. Joey captures a rival gangster and beats the hell out of him to learn who squealed. When he learns that his younger brother’s “steady” spilled the beans, he busts in his brother and the girl. Relating the misadventures and the extinction of the Grindle gang, his brother is nonplussed and quickly angered to find that his girl sold them out. Trying to worm her way out of death, she attempts to seduce Joey, during an act of misinterpreting him. He catapults her into another world with a single shot through the heart.

Brothers Joey and Eddie take it on the lam and lay low for several weeks. Instructing Eddie to avoid female attachments in future, they hook up with one-night-stands to sate their urges. Joey, however, becomes infatuated with a girl that gives him the works and dumps him the next day. He doesn’t mind doing that to any girl, but no girl is gonna give him the one-night treatment. Possessed, he stalks her, but lands one of her friends, instead. They hook up and while on a drive to a cottage, they are intercepted by her aged wealthy husband and his hired hoodlums. They beat the living tar out of Joey and leave him for dead on a tombstone with a cement angel looking down on him, wings spread.

Something in him has cracked, severely. Mentally unstable, he is tended by a mob doctor and nursed back to health. But he doesn’t wait long to drag Eddie and some fresh cohorts into an assignment to kill everyone at the mansion that beat him to death. The doll-baby is happy that they are all dead and she is free. Convincing her to stay away from him until the news dies down, she plays her part admirably to the newshounds and law.

Time passes, they hook up, take a drive, and another group of hoods pull them over. Beaten severely and captured, he awakens to find his girlfriend on a bed and raped by a man he let take the rap for him years earlier. He had escaped prison and was hunting Joey the entire time. Having located Joey earlier in the novel, he followed him to the mansion and realized there was the opportunity for a monetary rake-off, a la bribery. He convinces an apish ogre to join his ranks, and others. After raping the girl, the ape is given his turn. Rapidly unhinging, Joey struggles free, grabs a gun, and shoots her dead. The ape dims is lights quickly.

He reawakens in a basement, bound and chained to a wall, battered and beaten to death. His brother and help break him out, but it’s clear to all present that his mental stability is rapidly waning. He’s dangerously close to losing touch with reality.

Fearing that everyone is out to get him, Joey begins a one-man war against his own gang, thinking that they are taking over the gang. He kills everyone, often mistaking his guards as long-dead rival gang members. In the final scene, he has it out with his brother Eddie, and top lieutenant, whom he is certain intends to take over the gang. Eddie, realizing that Joey is indeed too far gone, pulls his gun. The lieutenant pulls his and shoots the gun out of Eddie’s hand (he’s still loyal after all) and Joey shoots him.

Joey, not wounded, last man standing, gloats, and while Eddie is slowly bleeding out to death, the lieutenant, shot himself a couple fatal times, shoot Joey dead, realizing many innocent parties will continue to die if he doesn’t. He is the last to eventually die in that office, with the final thought that none of this should ever have happened….

 

“The Man of Many Colours” by David Braza

This lovely item has been sitting on my shelf for a very long time, begging to be read….

“The Man of Many Colours” is by David Braza, whose actual identity is unconfirmed. This 126-page digest-paperback was published by Modern Fiction Ltd. around September 1953 and is a “Detective Spy Thriller.” Perhaps what arrested my eye was the Ray Theobald artwork. It’s hard to ignore the scantily clad female in the backdrop.

The book opens with the police force chasing a man whom is jumping across rooftops. Eventually, the narrating policeman apparently shoots once and kills the man. The whole scenario feels wrong to him and the spends the rest of the novel moping around trying to learn more about the man, the circumstances, and just what building and offices the apparent cat burglar was either trying to break into, or, had succeeded in entering. Anyone reading realizes that the latter is the case, he isn’t convinced. He’s more focused on the fact that he actually had to draw his sidearm and kill a man.

Unfortunately for him, and the reader, our would-be hero is a mutt of a character, whom takes a backseat to another character, halfway through the novel. He is eventually disclosed as an M.I.5 operative, and while he requires the active assistance of the local police force, and in fact requests this specific officer to continue his investigative work, he himself relinquishes very little in the way of facts until too late.

They are time and again brought back to a circus, to the freak show circuit. The center attraction (for them) is a seemingly deaf-and-dumb behemoth, whom is colorfully tattooed from head to toe (hence the title of the book). And yes, if you are into INK (that’s “tattooing” for those in the know, among other choice words) then perhaps this book will have a market for tattoo collectors. This man is eventually kidnapped and brought to the docks to be shipped overseas.

Racing against time, they board several unscrupulously run seafaring vessels before lucking onto a cabin containing the “freak” and the person in charge of smuggling him out of the country. The freak ends up dying, having been giving a massive drug overdose. Only thing is, the freak is not the right man. And the smuggler was tricked, not aware of the duplicity.

Combining all known details, we are led on a wild chase that leads to an anti-war movement convention and Communists, which pretty much explains the spy thriller elements of this novel. The ensuing chase(s) lead them to the man behind the whole entire charade…for one man, a mole, has been hindering their every step. Someone privy to police operations. Turns out the Chief Constable was the head conspirator! On arriving at his estate, they find that he has committed suicide. Rather than print this damning evidence, M.I.5 buries the incident as a heart attack case.

But, where is the freak?

Without any due explanation, it is deduced that he never was smuggled, but locked away somewhere on the circus grounds. They investigate at night, and crawling through the tunnels of a ride that normally is flooded by day, they find a side door. Inside is the vixen on the front cover (no, she’s not skimpily clad) wielding a gun. They take her apart, but, the freak is released, and in his insanity, he batters them aside and escapes. Chasing after him, the tunnel is suddenly flooded with water by the tattooed man. A light in one hand, gun in the other, the police detective inches forward in the inky, watery gloom, when suddenly a boulder is hurled at him (see the front cover). Thankfully, the boulder is nothing more than a painted styrofoam prop, and while it stuns him and forces him to drop the gun, he’s not seriously injured.

With the assistance of the M.I.5 operative, they subdue the mentally deranged lunatic (for aren’t nearly all freak show participants portrayed as abnormal in old literature?) and all Communist parties are arrested.

And the girl? She was put on trial and convicted. Turns out our policeman didn’t kill the rooftop hopper. She did.

The tattooed behemoth? He died months later, having mysteriously drowned in a river.

The novel is spotted with holes and inconsistencies, but, my overall verdict is that the novel was captivating enough a read to warrant a second look for anyone else interested in tackling the task. Or, you might just wish to acquire it for the cover art…like most collectors.