Framed In Guilt

Ilves-sarja #50

by Day Keene

Keene's first novel. Author Robert Stanton is on top of the world, with a best-seller to his credit, a series of hits in Hollywood, and beautiful actress who wants to make husband #5 or 6. But a night of drinking leaves a girl dead, fingers pointing, and rumors about another wife far away.

Genres: Noir

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

Day Keene, whose real name was Gunnar Hjerstedt, was one of the leading paperback mystery writers of the 1950s. Along with writing over 50 novels, he also wrote for radio, television, movies, and pulp magazines. Often his stories were set in South Florida or swamp towns in Louisiana, and included a man wrongly accused and on the run, determined to clear his name.

Reviews

[Timo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jopas oli hyvä ja jännittävä. Kirja, jossa aikuisten oikeasti kiinnosti saada tietää, kuka on syyllinen ja miten rikoksen oli tehnyt. Aivan loistavaa.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Framed in Guilt" takes place in 1940's post-war Hollywood. It begins with the pulpiness of Grace Turner, a British woman who had fallen for an American GI stationed there. She tracked him down to Hollywood, Arthur had claimed to be in love with her. He was going to marry her and all, but he disappeared and now that she had found him he wanted nothing to do with her. Down to her last dollar, what is she to do she wonders when she sees a news article about movie script writer, Robert Stanton, about to marry Joy Parnell, the princess of the silver screen. Of course, what else could she do but call him up and blackmail him, knowing as she did about her friend Eve, abandoned during the war, blinded by bomb blasts, and raising a young son all on her on, believing all along that Robert Stanton had died, having been shot down over enemy territory. Blackmail is never pretty and here the results were not what Grace aimed for. She recognized him when he pulled up and talked to him as he drove her up to a quiet place in the hills.

The next morning, Stanton stumbled into his ranch, half out of his mind drunk and with a huge blackout as to what had happened the night before. The sheriff's deputies are right on his heels and he doesn't know what to make of it, where he had been, or even who Grace was. But the one thing he and his handlers know is that he was best served keeping the scandal out of the papers and away from Joy Parnell, fickle as the bombshell was.

Keene does a great job of portraying 1940's Hollywood from the rundown hotels beneath the neon lights of Hollywood and Vine to the parties on the fabulous ranches out in the valley. Keene creates great characters like Stanton, whose really one claim to fame was a true life story of survival in a German POW camp after he had been shot down. The mystery keeps the reader engaged from beginning to end and it is terrificly filled with great stuff.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Day Keene's first novel. Has Hollywood screenwriter Robert Stanton been framed for murder? He is accused of killing a woman he claims he never met to cover up fathering a child with a woman he claims has never met, but there is compelling evidence that he is lying on both counts. Will he be able to prove his innocence? A little bit of noir, a little bit of procedural, a little bit of whodunit, and a whole lot of cheese.

[Ronald Koltnow · Rating 4 out of 5]

As part of my ongoing crusade to read every Hollywood Noir published before 1970, I picked up this Day Keene novel. I was not previously a Keene fan, and this starts sort of sluggishly, but it turns into a mad comic novel about the fragile egos of Hollywood types. Sleazy detectives, pompous producers, vain actors, a beautiful blind girl, and some nice framing fill this romp. Total enjoyment.