I have been a longtime fan of the "Hard Case Crime" series of lost noir reprints with period covers, and I think this latest one--George Axelrod's Blackmailer--is one of my favorites.
Blackmailer, written by Axelrod in the early 50s, starts like one of those flip uptown New York society stories of that period, but surprises with dashes of blazing violence and cold-hearted dealings.
A boozing writer who more than resembles Hemingway, in failing health from alcoholism and on the verge of suicide, sells a manuscript to a high society gadfly who more than resembles Truman Capote. A flinty starlet who resembles any number of actresses at the time is the third side of a poisonous triangle that ends up in double-crossing and death.
I was intrigued to find out, googling Axelrod later, that he was a prominent playwright and screenwriter with only some dabblings into novel writing. It is obvious that Axelrod moved in the society he was writing about, and I'm surprised that his central characters, closely drawn from real people to say the least, did not draw more attention to this work.
Blackmailer is lighter than a lot of Hard Case Crime books in some ways, and reads at a fast clip; but it also packs a sucker punch that will leave the reader thinking.
I read this one in a long snowy weekend in Michigan, purchased from a Books a Million gift card given to me by my daughter for Christmas.
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