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.)

Kiss Her Goodbye by Wade Miller

Back in the day, you could walk into a store and buy a 45. I am talking here about 45 rpm records, not .45 caliber automatics.

Those seven-inch, black vinyl recordings had a song on each side. The A side was the one the artists expected to be popular. But occasionally, the B side became the hit.

 

For me, something similar happened with Stark House publishers’ two books in one volume of Wade Miller crime novels.

 

The first story, Kitten With A Whip, may be the more famous of the two. But the second book, Kiss Her Goodbye is a terrific read.

 

Kiss Her Goodbye captured me in the first pages with its sense of impending tragedy. The suspense grew and had me on the edge of my seat.

 

The novel, published in 1956, is about Ed Darnell, a man in his late 20s, who rolls into a small, Southern California desert town with his sister, Emily, who is 18 and a knockout. The beautiful girl catches the attention of every male. But something is wrong. Ed and Emily are running from something.

 

Wade Miller (the pen name of writing team Bob Wade and Bill Miller) take their time rolling out their story. But readers will sense something is very wrong. They will worry about Emily’s safety. And they will be caught up in Ed’s struggle to protect her from the local wolves.

 

The worst of the wolves is Cory, the smiling, overly friendly, local business man, who employs Ed as a truck driver. Once Cory, a married-man and a pillar of the community, gets a look at Emily he goes on the hunt for her.

 

A young woman as good looking as Emily should have had plenty of practice deflecting the advances of guys like Cory. But Emily has a problem. While physically she is a grown woman, mentally she is an overly trusting child.

 

Ed knows he should commit her to a home, but cannot bring himself to do it. He could not afford a nice place, and state run institutions in that era could be hell holes. So, for years Ed has taken care of Emily.

 

Further complicating his problem is Emily’s propensity for violence when frightened. Men on the make who scare her can wind up in a world of hurt.

 

Bob Wade (1920-2012) and Bill Miller (1920-1961) wrote more than 30 novels together. I’ve read a few of them. Of those, Kiss Her Goodbye is the best, so far.

 

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

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

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.)