Richard S. Prather’s Find This Woman was published in 1951, the third book Prather had published that year (the other two were Bodies in Bedlam and Everybody Had a Gun).. This is Shell Scott’s fourth adventure and Prather is still experimenting with his formula. A rich man hires Shell Scott to find his daughter. The search leads to Vegas where Victor Dante operates a night club called–what else–The Inferno. Bodies are found, Shell Scott gets roughed up, and there’s a tiny bit of sex thrown into the mix. The elements that the Shell Scott series will be famous for–clever one-liners and convoluted plots–are understated in this book. But, if you want to see how Prather started to tweak his creation, Find This Woman can be revealing.
Love the McGinnis art. I remember buying a copy of that edition just for the cover, even though I’d already read the book in one of the earlier editions.
James, I’ve been buying paperbacks with great McGinnis covers for decades. But only Art Scott has them all!
I’ll bet the copy with the McGinnis cover outsold all the rest put together.
Bill, that McGinnis cover on FIND THIS WOMAN is top-notch. You’re right about it spurring sales!
I dunno, Bill…that earliest cover rather displays the character’s pulchritude impressively as well.
Wonder if Prather ever looked at the TV series DANTE and wondered if Blake Edwards had been reading a certain novel when he devised that series…
Todd, good point! That Dante/Inferno reference resonates.
I hit Bill’s blog first, so he got my first thoughts on this well-deserved multi-party tribute. I mentioned there that Prather did the foreword for my first McGinnis book. He recalls how thrilled he was when the first Gold Medal Shell Scott with a McGinnis cover appeared (a surprise), and how appalled he was by the godawful photo covers when he switched to Pocket. “Shell Dork”, he called him. Time to put a Shell Scott on my nightstand!
Art, Rob McGinnis created some great covers for the Shell Scott series! I picked FIND THIS WOMAN partly because I love the McGinnis cover!
Yes, nice. I did the book before it in the series.
Rick, the early Shell Scotts that you and I reviewed have more raw power than the later, more humorous books.
I just remembered!
Rob McGinnis also did the covers for Carter Brown – we talked about him early last year.
Again, the covers are better (and more suggestive …) than the books themselves …
Wolf, you need to check out the Robert McGinnis collections that Art Scott assisted in publishing! Many of those covers you remember from the “carter brown” books are included in those wonderful books! You can check out my review here: http://georgekelley.org/the-art-of-robert-m-mcginnis-with-an-introduction-by-art-scott/
Thranks, George and Art – and Mc Ginnis too of course for that stuff!
Looked at some of the great pictures and the comments on amazon.de are hilarious.
Wolf, I’ve always had fun reading the AMAZON comments.
I don’t think I’ve ever read one of the Prather books. I seem to remember that the late Barbara Burnett Smith (mystery writer) was his daughter in law. I could be mistaken though, it may have been another author of that era
Maggie, those Shell Scott paperbacks were everywhere when I was growing up. Now, they’re hard to find.
I believe Barbara Burnett Smith’s father-in-law was Thomas B. Dewey. Bill Crider would know for sure.
I loved the McGinnis covers too. Loved the “Shell Dork” comment. I read a few of these over the years but usually liked the humorous ones better. I just let them wash over me without paying too much attention to the plot.
Jeff, I agree: those later screwball Shell Scotts were fun to read.
George, I’m looking forward to reading more Shell Scott novels in coming months. I liked Prather’s writing.
Prashant, Prather was a very popular writer in the 1950s and 1960s. Today, not so much. But I still enjoy his wacky novels!