North Beach Girl / Scandal on the Sand

by John Trinian, Rick Ollerman (Introduction), Ki Longfellow (Introduction)

NORTH BEACH GIRL



Erin is tired of being an artist's model. She's tired of working. Jobs are such a drag. The night she quits her latest modeling gig, she goes back to her pad she shares with her girlfriend, Bruno, and their roommates, Lilly and Marian, and starts drinking. They all live in San Francisco's North Beach, where nights are filled with bar hopping and Beat poetry. Hanging out. This night she meets Riley. He's looking for a nude model but Erin turns him down. He follows her home anyway. Bruno takes an immediate dislike to Erin's new drinking friend, and threatens him away. But Erin keeps running into him. And then Erin's rich grandmother dies, and everything changes. Why is Bruno now so nice to Riley? What are the secrets that Lilly and Marian suddenly keep? And what world does Erin really belong after all?





SCANDAL ON THE SAND



Hobart can't figure Karen out. The sex was great last night, so why is she in such a sour mood this morning? All he wants is a hearty breakfast, but she insists on a walk along the beach. When they find a live, beached whale on the shore, all she can think to do is try to save it. The cop who shows up, Mulford, has got the right idea--he wants to kill it and have it towed away. That would suit Hobart just fine. But before long some onlookers arrive. There's Joe Bonniano, a hitman waiting for his pickup to arrive and whisk him to freedom. Fredrick Langfield, has-been actor and drug addict, waiting for his fix. Earle Kavanaugh, nudie photographer, waiting for his big break, knowing his career is now behind him. And Hobart, waiting for Karen... And while they wait, Mulford gets ready for the kill.

Genres: Mystery

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 13, 2014

Reviews

[Dave]

Stark House Press gives us a double collection of two Trinian novels. Trinian, when he operated under his real name, hung around North Beach with Kerouac and the other beats. North Beach Girl pays homage to the beatnik life, dead end jobs, poetry readings, drug use, shacking up, heading from here to there. Great character development but, as a crime novel, real slow to develop until the end.

Scandal on the Sand, the second of the two novels, is really novellete size, meaning it’s really short in the 80 to 90 page world. It is, at least initially, told from the perspective of a giant beached whale 🐳. It is a languid Southern California where couples bicker, police are triggger happy, mobsters are trying to lay low, and none of them knows what to do with the whale 🐳.

These two stories are packaged with biographical sketches of the author.

[Joannag]

Fun finding a real pulp fiction writer back in print. Trinian wasn't all that great, not when you compare him to Jim Thompson or Cornell Woolrich, but he had something. He created real people even if you don't like them very much. In NORTH BEACH GIRL you can wander about in Sixties North Beach, which is a treat if you're into San Francisco at one of its most crucial times. SCANDAL ON THE SAND is unique. It begins with a whale washing up on the beach, and for a short while the story is from the whale's POV. That's pretty unique. But the real treat in this double feature is Ki Longfellow's memories of her days with "Marko" sandwiched between Trinian's two books. I'm a Longfellow fan which is why I bought this paperback. Trinian/Marko was well worth the price, but Longfellow's amazing writing takes it right over the top.

[Mathete]

Great fun to read a real pulp fiction writer. Not one of pulp's leading lights, I grant you, but interesting enough. Not only that, but to be in a time and place of such interest helps carry the reader along. The real gem in these two reissues is the piece sandwiched between. Ki Longfellow knew the man when he was writing. Her writing is not pulp. It's straight up terrific. I bought the book for her contribution.

[Rupert]

North Beach Girl would have been fine without the crime plot added. It’s very enjoyable as a slice of life from a very particular time & place that the author knew well. The crime element felt like a giant leap that didn’t ring true, hadn’t been set up enough.
Scandal on The Beach was the surprise of the 2. When I read the setup of the book I thought it would be the throwaway of the two, but it’s really enjoyable. A nice cross between pulp & literature. Plus a good look at a sadistic cop & how he operates, what makes him tick. A great B-movie of a book.
If you get the chance, check out the author’s cameo in “Once A Thief”, a movie that he worked on the screenplay for. His scene was shot in a real jail & he couldn’t be found at shooting time because he’d been locked up in that very jail the night before. The cops let him out to do his scene & he’s wild-eyed high as a kite, pulls off the scene as a junkie who lives in a shooting gallery.

[John Marr]

I found NORTH BEACH GIRL to be pretty underwhelming, short on action, low on atmosphere, and a little too heavy on the ennui for my taste.

But SCANDAL ON THE SAND --wow! Incredible and every bit worth the hype. A live whale beaches himself on an LA beach, smack in the middle of the lives of a disparate cast of Angeleno characters: a mismatched post coital couple, a hungover lifeguard, an on-the-lam hitman, an over-the hill junkie actor with the beatnik wife, a sadistic cop, a washed-up girlie photographer complete with cheesecake models, and a malcontented tow truck driver. Now, I'm sure metaphorically speaking the whale isn't a whale at all and more than one Ishmael lurks in the ensemble. But even non-Moby Dick readers (guilty!) can revel in the acid etched characters, their un-trite interactions, and the unexpected climax that doesn't leave anyone singing "Kumbaya."

[Josh Sebastian]

I read this because I am a fan of Ki Longfellow. Marko's stories are just fine for pulp fiction. But what I want now is a whole book by Longfellow about those long ago days. I'd gobble it up.