Stark House – Larque Press | The Digest Enthusiast

Reviews July 22, 2026

Black Gat 85: The Corrupters by William Francis

Mike Moyden was a straight cop in a crooked town. He was setup and sent up and did hard time. But he was lucky in one way. The land he bought turned out to have oil, so he also got rich. Out of the wild blue yonder he’s contacted by his old colleague Tom Fry. They meet, and Moyden learns his ex is facing a murder rap for killing her boyfriend, brother of town kingpin Ward Neely. Fry’s a good cop, but not one to make trouble so this is all off-the-record. Fry can’t afford to help, but if Moyden cares to take it on that’s his business. Of course, it wouldn’t be a novel if he didn’t.

Moyden proceeds barging his way into town, stirring up trouble for everyone he encounters as he gropingly paves his way forward. In his wake are beatings, bruises, and bodies. But Moyden will not be deterred. He’s still a cop at heart and he wants justice above all else—and to save his ex from the gallows, in a town known for its corruption.

The Corrupters is packed with hardboiled action, terse text, high-stakes tension, sultry women, and heroic heart. A great addition to the Black Gat series.

This was William Francis Urell’s (1913–1979) final novel, first published by Lion in 1953. He previously wrote three novels featuring LA detective Anthony Martin and one other standalone, also in ’53.

Reviews July 2, 2026

Noir Classics: The Lady was a Tramp by Harry Whittington

Another collection of Harry Whittington’s stories from Stark House, this one composed entirely by pulp fictions starring PI Pat Raffigan. The volume begins with a stellar introduction to the series by David Laurence Wilson, that highlights the lead story, a novelette, for which the volume is named. If we go by the original publishing dates, this one was actually the last one written. I believe it was first part of the Handy-Books run, and debuted in 1951.

Although the (mostly) earlier, shorter capers originally appeared in newspapers they read like classic pulp fare with a heart-racing pace, wholesale murders, and relentless fights—with pistols or anything else close at hand. Raffigan is one poor PI; both financially and haplessly. His clients seem to either stiff him or die before he can collect his fee, and he is skull-socked or shot every time he wades into his enemies’ lairs. Good thing he’s tall, relatively buff, heals quickly, and is ultimately smarter than the killers—and the cops he often assists.

The unrelenting plots drive every case, but there’s considerably more air for characterization and subplots in the novelette. That’s where Raffigan’s indefatigable secretary Mary Beth Potter and Indigo City’s Homicide Detective Lieutenant Rory O’Rourke get their chances to shine, and add some depth and balance to all the thrills.

All told, The Lady was a Tramp is a non-stop, pulp-pounding, double-barreled read.

Reviews June 21, 2026

BG84: Sweet and Deadly by Verne Chute

Mel Thune’s last romance went south. So much so that he swore off women for the indefinite future; and decided to vacate LA, heading in a similar direction, for Phoenix. Only when he gains his turn at a bus station’s ticket counter, he’s a buck short of the fare. And that is enough to trigger a very different type of journey; one of murder, money, mayhem—and, yes—romance.

A little man, behind him in the ticket line, hears Thune’s desired destination and proffers a solution. He’s headed to The Valley of the Sun himself and needs a driver. It’s a proposition with too much appeal to scrutinize in foresight, but leads to a narrow escape when Albert Wilson, the car’s owner, is murdered before their road trip has barely begun. Thune escapes and finds himself holding a cache of blackmail files and $2500 in cold, hard cash. Whoever killed Wilson no doubt wants those files and Thune too, just as soon as they figure out who he is and where they can find him.

The titular dame, about to figure big in Thune’s future, is a knockout named Angel, whose role he can’t quite figure fits into the messy fix he’s in. And besides his doubts about her motives and interest in a blackmail ring, he can’t help being enamored with her, despite his recent pledge to swear off the female persuasion.

Added to the novel’s other attributes—engaging characters, solid plot, and plenty of action—Chute writes like a boilermaker, making the journey that much more intoxicating. For instance: “It hadn’t rained for months and Los Angeles was taking it hard. Traffic was noisy and irritable. Homeward-bound cars bucked and braked, and meek little men, who wouldn’t have cursed a cat, were fluent in expressing hate for drivers who barred their way.”

Verne Chute (1898–1986) cut his teeth in the pulp’s short story racket, everything from western to crime to SF; and moved on to novels and children’s books.

Reviews May 28, 2026

BG83: A Rage of Desire by Clayton Matthews

Mitch Sutton has—if not everything—most of the American dream a 1960-era everyman would want: beautiful wife, two lovely children, a solid job, and a home of his own. But lately, there’s no spark between him and Claire, so he ain’t happy. She doesn’t think much of his drinking, so he’s tried to curtail the habit. But one fateful night he overindulges and hooks up with Jane, a self-assured, brazen, sugar plum. They crawl the pubs into the wee hours, and she leaves him flat-footed and smoldering. That should’ve been that, a high wire dance that ended safely, but Mitch is smitten and can’t get her off his mind.

Now, it’s an obsession, and his compulsion twists into something far more complicated when Jane turns up at the dealership where he works as sales manager. Soon the flames of desire overcome the heat of the danger of discovery, and Mitch is headlong into a full-blown illicit affair. Many steamy paragraphs and pages ensue.

Just when you start to wonder if this is a torrid romance novel or a crime book, Mitch finds himself behind bars in the fight of his life.

A Rage of Desire was Clayton Matthews’ (1918–2004) first novel, published in 1960. His commitment to writing is proven by an impressive bibliography of more than 35 novels. He also penned shorts for crime digests like Mike Shayne, Alfred Hitchcock, and Man from U.N.C.L.E. He married Patricia (Brisco) in 1972 and the couple wrote five novels featuring series character Casey Farrell.

Reviews May 6, 2026

BG82: Green Ice by Raoul Whitfield

Raoul Whitfield (1896–1945) was a pal of Dashiell Hammett, who weighed in on Green Ice for the New York Evening Post. “The plot doesn’t matter. What matters is that here are 280 pages of naked action pounded into tough compactness by staccato, hammer-like writing.” It’s an impressive blurb, and now that I’ve read the novel it’s easier to unpack.

Perhaps Hammett dismissed the plot rather than try to explain it. It’s complicated. Green Ice, which was Whitfield’s first novel, is packed with a large cast even for a mystery novel. It was intentional because there’s a high body count and many of the yeggs and fatales only live to see their end rather than The End.

Mal Ourney is a newshound sucked into the charms of bad girl Dot Ellis. So much so, he takes a rap on her behalf and serves of two-year bit without remorse. Green Ice opens with a bang as the two are reunited upon Ourney’s release, and plunges him head-first into a confusing and complicated mystery littered with bullets, bodies, and booty. Dot is the first casualty of this rapid-fire fracas.

Ourney’s been out of circulation so it takes him a considerable chunk of pages to figure the potential angles and motives of a dynamic cast that enters and exits as he attempts to unravel the shreds of information he extracts or extorts. His opponents and allies shift throughout. And there’s more than one crook who knows more than our hero. Plus, there’s the cops. Somehow, Ourney prods or plops himself into the middle of every single thing and is repeatedly duped, dumped, or detained for interrogation.

The plot is important, but not so important that readers need keep every detail and actor in mind. The plot is the framework upon which Whitfield showcases his command of action, 1920’s slang, and descriptive magic. This is one rocket-powered street race, drenched in a shower of hardboiled prose.

Reviews April 10, 2026

BG81: Brenda by Sam S. Taylor

All the elements of a classic rural noir are present here, including solid prose. Still, Brenda just didn’t do it for me. When characters behave so illogically it breaks the suspension of disbelief and leaves you disconnected from the action and its intended emotional response, it’s too much. That’s Brenda, Boyce, Conrad, Frances, and even several of the secondary characters.

Conrad returns home from Korea to the farm where his Uncle Boyce and now deceased Aunt Norma, raised him. Boyce is blindly infatuated with the decades-younger, hottie, Brenda, who is adamant to prove she can seduce and scorch any man she chooses—even if it requires wedlock. Boyce is exasperatingly old school, and somehow believes he can return to eking out an existence via dawn-to-dusk farm work with city babe Brenda transformed from playgirl into hard-working farmer’s wife overnight. Brenda breaks that mold in a New York minute, and even turns her seductive sonar onto Conrad. Oh, what a tangled mess she weaves!

Originally, written under the pen name Lehi Zane, Brenda, was first published by Gold Medal in 1952. Taylor also wrote three detective novels, all featuring PI Neal Cotton, for Dutton/Signet from 1950 to 1953.

Reviews February 28, 2026

BG80: The Dropouts by Robert Goodney

The lives of two battered down-and-outers cross paths mid the shadowed streets of NYC. Both protagonists are wrought from dubious roots; and despite good intentions, and some desire to “straighten” themselves out, both are unable to overcome their baggage. Shaker returns to the scene of the Houston Hotel where he previously lived, scraping by as a substitute desk clerk at odd hours. He longs for Mexico, where he imagines life will be golden. Meanwhile, Cass lives in a similar dive and works a dead end job far below her potential. The two connect, and subconsciously attempt to complete each other. But their primary commitment remains in their broken identities, and they seem unable to overcome their scars to embrace a better reality. Shaker in particular.

The Dropouts is a fine character study of the struggling class and the lost souls it produces. Goodney, whom we learn from Tom Cantrell’s informative introduction, died at the age of 29. This was his only novel and includes several unusual narrative techniques and copious descriptors of setting. Like the novel itself, readers are left hoping there was more his story to be told.

Reviews January 21, 2026

BG79: Walk the Dark Streets by William Krasner

Joe Marco looks more like a jockey than a gangster. He role-plays a law-abiding club owner, but Detective Captain Sam Birge can see beneath the veneer. Marco is careful to cover his tracks, but Birge recognizes the hood’s hidden ventures encourage exactly the sort of crimes that the detective faces every day. This time, it’s the murder of one of the Club Trinidad’s hostesses—stage named Janice Morel. Knifed in her twin-size at the fleabag Marne while comatose from a night inscribed with cheap liquor.

Birge and his partner, Charley Hagen are opposites. Birge is older, wiser, and measured. Hagen is young, ambitious, and overly aggressive. Birge is a likable character, while Hagen is more the stereotypical tough cop who beats out a confession to speed up a conviction. That’s where Harry Chapel comes in, a low-life with baggage; and intimate of Ms. Morel. Initially, Chapel is merely a person of interest, but Hagen’s threatening accusations transform him into suspect number one when he flees the scene immediately following his browbeating.

Noir excellence, rife in character depth and engaging prose, this Edgar-nominated first novel by Krasner (1917–2003), was originally published in 1949. Detective Birge would go on to appear in four additional novels, although one saw print only in Germany.

Reviews December 25, 2025

BG78: One Foot in Hell by Wilene Shaw

The fact that Larry Crenshaw is a successful accountant, model husband, and a solid citizen of his native burg, fictitious Hadsville, Kentucky, located on the banks of the Ohio River, belies his reliability as a narrator. He juggles a few quirks, but generally hides his massive psychological dysfunction pretty well. He successfully deludes himself as he denudes nearly every female he encounters—her age notwithstanding. Readers witness the slow boil of his undoing as his alternate reality rises into a deadly hallucination of sanity.

Crenshaw is obsessed with sex, and it becomes obvious as pages accumulate that it’s the driving force of his existence; even if he can’t seem to recognize this fatalistic fact himself. His psychosis grew out of a brutal childhood past, fed by early promiscuity-interruptus and a tragic marriage, Crenshaw spirals into a sex-starved, booze-infused frenzy that leads to one crippling consequence after another.

Originally published by Ace in 1961 under Virginia M. Harrison’s pseudonym, Wilene Shaw. Although it was written long after the jazz age, its kilter would seem to fit comfortably within Stark House’s Staccato Crime series. Stark House previously published Shaw’s Heat Lightning in their first collection of Ace paperbacks: Three Aces (May 2023)

Reviews November 25, 2025

BG77: The Grave’s in the Meadow by Manning Lee Stokes

Imagine writing three novels a year for 30 years. When Stokes launched his impressive bibliography in 1946 with the publication of The Wolf Howls “Murder” he went on to write 87 more before his death in 1976. Of course, sometimes, like in 1967 his credits include a staggering nine titles, but if you take his active years 29 (he died in early January, so we won’t count 1976), and divide by 88, it comes out to three books a year. Many were written under pseudonyms, and this Black Gat edition includes a four-page bibliography of Stokes’ storied career.

The Grave’s in the Meadow originally came out in 1959 from Arcadia House and was reprinted by Dell two years later. (The cover on this BG edition reprints the one from Dell.) The novel opens moments after Richard (Dick) Ludwell witnesses the murder of Kid Gonzales an up-and-coming middleweight who refused to take a dive in his last fight for the benefit of mobster Al Alonzo. The Kid paid dearly and Ludwell, who can identify the shooter Tuffy Sikes, knows he must disappear or face erasure by Sikes. Ludwell’s childhood chum is about his only trusted friend and has an ideal hideout buried in some tiny burg 100 miles from his troubles in Lake City.

Ludwell’s getaway is fast and smooth, and upon arrival in his new home he immediately begins to leverage every lucrative opportunity he can exploit. But nearby Shadeland is already packed with its own raft of savvy operators, and Ludwell is soon entwined in the local power plays. The novel is packed with unexpected twists and plenty of action as Ludwell sprints headlong from one hot mess to the next. It’s a mind-bender!