STARK HOUSE’S latest Carter Brown omnibus, GIRL IN A SHROUD/THE GIRL WHO WAS POSSESSED/THE LADY IS AVAILABLE, includes Al Wheeler mysteries #28-30 from 1963.
Girl in a Shroud opens with Lieutenant Al Wheeler and Sergeant Polnik at a mortuary where they find a sexy young woman who slept in a casket. His further investigation finds another casket with a corpse who has been shot in the head. Both the woman and the corpse are connected to the Landau Research Foundation–engaged in experiments with LSD. Wheeler flirts with the female Persons of Interest and tangles with a Nazi prison camp survivor to reveal the true motivation for the murder. GRADE: B
The Girl Who Was Possessed (aka, The Sinners) begins with Al Wheeler summoned to a sanatarium where the nude body of a woman wearing a cat mask has been found stabbed to death. Wheeler investigates the woman who was a patient claiming she was “possessed” by a witch. Satanic Masses, orgies, exotic drugs, blood sacrifices, and big money involve Wheeler in a case with plenty of weird suspects and deadly magic. GRADE: B+
The Lady is Available (aka, The Lady is Not Available) follows Wheeler as the death of an artist–who leaves a nude painting as a clue–involves adultery, two partners in an oil business where treachery is brewing, and a maid whose lasagna is alluring. Wheeler tries to outthink the genius behind the murder, but the deadly murderer triggers even more deaths. GRADE: B
This wild trio of Al Wheeler mysteries blends clever banter, twisty plots, seductive suspects, dark secrets, and provocative puzzles into thrillers with action and humor!
Two things got me through college: the fact that there were five barrooms close to my dormitory and a steady stack of Carter Brown books.
Jerry, I was reading Carter Brown’s Al Wheeler books in High School. In the 1970s, when I was working for a consulting company who sent me all over the U.S. I spent many hours in O’Hare Airport reading Carter Brown paperbacks while my flights were delayed.
One thing that is never missing from these books is plenty of nudity.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.
Jeff, Carter Brown was pretty tame for what came later…
I am not sure if I ever read a book by Carter Brown or not
Patti, Carter Brown was targeting young men in the 1960s with these books. Today, it’s all about cell phones and online gambling.
You mean, in the equivalents of Brown’s novels? I’ve managed to never read them as well, not out of any snobbery, just out of seeing them everywhere in the ’70s and assuming that would continue if I wanted to put down the “Hitchcock” anthologies and the occasional novel by the core CF writers…but they did get a lot thinner on the ground outside 2ndhand stores…
Oh, as opposed to leisure reading…got it.
Todd, I found Carter Brown paperbacks perfect reading in O’Hare Airport as I waited for my delayed flights.
When I started university in 1962 I was still living with my parents, took a train everday (around 40 min) and walked to university around 15 min.
On my way there was a bookstore and I saw some Ace books with those provocative pictures. In the end I couldn’t resist and bought one and then more of those pulps wth my pocket money – they weren’t too expensive. Just the right stuff for the journey home …
Later I found more of them in second hand bookstores on my trips to London.
So Carter Brown helped me learn English – words you didn’t find in the math books …
Wolf, Carter Brown had international appeal!
I’ve never read him, but remember the covers
Maggie, the Robert McGinnis covers on the Carter Brown paperbacks helped sell millions of copies!
I’ve read a bunch of Carter Brown books! Not just Al Wheeler, but his other protagonists! Fast and fun reading! Brown, born Alan Yates, was an English-born Australian who churned out over 200 novels!
Bob, anybody who writes over 200 novels and gets them published earns my admiration.
Barbara Cartland? (Something like 900 novels, 23 in one year.)
Jeff, Barbara Cartland, John Creasey, and all those Pulp writers who churned out a million words a year…they boggle my mind!