Guilty Bystander by Wade Miller

If Bob Wade and Bill Miller (writing as Wade Miller) set out to create one of the most noir of noir novels, they achieved their goal – although they came perilously close to parody with Guilty Bystander.

The writing partners poured everything into this one. There is a drunken, down-and-out detective, a seedy hotel, a femme fatale, a good girl who could be more “fatale” than the other woman, a kidnapped child, a fortune in missing jewels, a bunch of rival gangsters, a couple of mysterious murders, and a lot of violent action.

Oh yeah, and rain. It rains all the time in this not-so-sunny California setting.

One morning, Max Thursday, wakes with a world-class hangover to find his ex-wife in his shabby hotel room with bad news. Their little boy has been kidnapped and her new husband, a doctor, has disappeared.

Max sets out to find the boy. The clues he picks up keep leading him back to a woman named Angel who, coincidentally, lives in his hotel. Angel knows far too many shady characters.

In the course of the 144 pages of the Signet paperback I picked up somewhere for a buck (original price, 25 cents), Max gets framed, beaten, tortured, and dunked in the ocean – twice – before putting the puzzle together, recovering the child and solving the murders and the mystery of the jewels.

Bob Wade (1920-2012) and Bill Miller (1920-1961) wrote more than 30 novels together, including Kiss Her Goodbye  (see here) and Kitten With A Whip (see here). There is more about them at Thrilling Detective.

(For more posts on books, head over to Todd Mason’s blog.)
(And remember, my book, Lyme Depot, would make a great gift for a crime reader.)

Kitten with a Whip by Wade Miller

The 1959 crime novel, Kitten with a Whip, is a noir set in the sunshine of Southern California.

Average guy, David Patton, a San Diego engineer and family man is on his own while his wife and child visit family in San Francisco.

He wakes one morning to find a slinky teenage girl in a nightgown in his house.

She tells him of her escape from a harsh juvenile detention center and begs him to help her.

Does he toss her out and call the cops? No. Remember, this is noir.

He decides to help her. He buys her clothes. He drives her to the edge of town where she can catch a bus. He gives her money.

After making a few stops before going home, he walks into his house and there she is again.

Now Patton is giving himself acid reflux worrying about what the neighbors will think, and how to get rid of her in broad daylight.

She tries to seduce him. She threatens to tell the police he raped her. She threatens him with violence. And on and on.

At times, Patton’s bad decisions pile up so high that the book almost read like a dark comic novel.

Wade Miller was the pen name of the writing team of Bob Wade (1920-2012) and Bill Miller (1920-1961) who together wrote more than 30 novels, including Badge of Evil, which was the basis for Orson Welles’ film, “Touch of Evil.” There is more about them at Thrilling Detective.

The recent Stark House publication of Kitten with a Whip comes with a second Wade Miller novel, Kiss Her Goodbye from 1956.

And let’s hear it for Stark House, for their work in making these Wade Miller novels and many other hard-to-find books available.

(Also, please check out my crime novel, Lyme Depot. Thanks.)

(For more posts on books, head over to Todd Mason’s blog.)