FORGOTTEN BOOKS #432: THE WENCH IS WICKED/THE BLONDE/BLONDE VERDICT By “carter brown”







Once again STARK HOUSE delivers a fabulous omnibus edition. This time, the treat is three Al Wheeler mysteries by “carter brown” (the pen name of Alan Geoffrey Yates). I started reading “carter brown” books back in the early Sixties (and had numerous cashiers hassle me for buying books they deemed salacious).

This STARK HOUSE edition includes The Wench is Wicked (1955), the first Al Wheeler mystery. It has never been published in the United States. It introduces the wise-cracking Lieutenant who is like no other police detective. Wheeler chases women and murderers with equal enthusiasm. In this case, Wheeler investigates the murder of a writer with ties to a group shooting a Western movie.

Also included is The Blonde (1955), where a missing woman who suddenly comes out of hiding for a scheduled TV interview is murdered before she can tell her secrets.

Blonde Verdict (1956) was published in the U.S. by Signet in 1960 under the title, The Brazen. The U. S. edition was revised. This STARK HOUSE omnibus reprints the original Australian version.

Chris Yates provides a useful introduction to the prolific Alan Geoffrey Yates. There’s a nice Art Scott quote from his article on Carter Brown in Crime and Mystery Writers of the 20th Century. This book has it all!

16 thoughts on “FORGOTTEN BOOKS #432: THE WENCH IS WICKED/THE BLONDE/BLONDE VERDICT By “carter brown”

  1. Deb

    I don’t get cashiers hassling people for buying items that the store they work in stocks and presumably wants to sell. I had to tell a Target cashier to mind her own business when she gave one of my daughters grief for buying a Linkin Park CD.

    Reply
  2. wolf

    George, so maybe I was reading Carter Brown earlier than you did!

    I started at the university of Tübingen (we call it and the city the little sister of Heidelberg, less well known but equally good) in 1962, still living at home and taking the train (3rd class coach with wooden benches still …) every day. On my 2 miles walk (no money for a bus) from the station to the university I passed two bookstores – one always had a few Carter Brown and other US titles with lurid covers (in English) in the window, the other offered Astounding/Analog and Galaxy SF magazines …

    With the limited amount of pocket money I had it was always difficult to choose, but I bought a few of the Carter Brown books too …

    Reply
    1. wolf

      Yes George, even in German bookstores who sold some Engli!sh paperbacks you could always find a few of them – and they were relatively cheap too! With a cover price of 35 or 50 Cents I could buy them for maybe 2 German Marks.

      But of course I was mainly intereted in Science Fiction – but there wasn’t too much available. A few times the book seller (who was really nice and also a SF fan) ordered books for me – I gave him the numbers, mainly from the ACE catalogue (those doubles were fantastic). Then after two months maybe they would arrive, usuall not all and sometimes even wrong titles but that was ok with me.

      Who would have thought that 20 years later a client of mine would ask me to accompany some IT managers on a (well paid!) business trip to the USA?
      A dream came true …

      Reply
    1. wolf

      The covers were probably the best parts of these books – I had expected something raunchy as a young man, but didn’t get it of course …

      But then I found the Henry Miller books:

      Sexus and Plexus – that was more like it! 🙂
      And I also got a copy of the Kinsey report to impress my fellow students …

      I also ordered a paperback of some “dictionary of slang” to better understand – but then found out that they had deleted all sexual refernces from it, was really disappointed!

      Reply
      1. george Post author

        Wolf, the “carter brown” books suggested a lot of sexual conduct. The later books in the 1970s and 1980s were more explicit.

  3. Jeff Meyerson

    Wolf, love your bookstore story.

    I’ve read a few Carter Browns, not a lot. I used to pick up the Australian digest originals in England, especially looking for the ones that hadn’t been published in the U.S. at the time (this was the ’80s and ’90s), as well as British editions.

    Stark House does a great job with these old, mostly forgotten (except by a few of us!) books.

    Reply
  4. George Kelley

    Jeff, it was fun to read THE WENCH IS WICKED–the first Al Wheeler that hadn’t been published in the U.S. I bought a lot of carter brown paperbacks for the McGinnis covers.

    Reply
  5. Rick Robinson

    I bought a few, then read two, each in a different series, and stopped. Just didn’t like them much. They’re long gone now. I much prefer Mike Shayne or Shell Scott.

    Reply
    1. george Post author

      Rick, you need to be in a mood for silliness when you read an Al Wheeler mystery. Signet sold millions of copies of the “carter brown” series. As you correctly point out, they’re long gone now.

      Reply
    1. george Post author

      Prashant, I have fond memories of THE BRAZEN. It was one of the first “carter brown” books I read as a youth. These paperbacks were everywhere in the Sixties and Seventies. Then, they slowly disappeared. I haven’t found a nice copy of any “carter brown” book in a decade.

      Reply
  6. Jerry House

    Back in college, when I didn’t feel like studying, I’d go through 3 or 4 Carter Browns in a day. An easy way to relax and relieve stress.

    Reply
    1. george Post author

      Jerry, I read three Carter Browns in one day when I was stuck at O’Hare. My flight had been canceled because of “mechanical problems.”

      Reply

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