Framed in Guilt/My Flesh is Sweet

by Day Keene, Ed Gorman (Introduction)

Two hardboiled mystery classics from the post-pulp era, the first one set in post-WWII Los Angeles and involving a murder the suspect doesn't remember committing; the second an intriguing mystery set in Mexico and a Midwest carny town.

Genres: Noir

260 pages, Paperback

First published August 25, 2005

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

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

This package of two complete novels by pulp writer Day Keene is truly excellent. It contains no "B" sides. "Framed in Guilt" was Keene's first published novel and "My Flesh Is Sweet" was his third or fourth published novel. Both are early examples of his writing and are otherwise entirely unrelated.
"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.

The second book in Stark House's collection is "My Flesh Is Sweet" and it too is dripping with pulpy goodness. It reminds me a bit of Richard Stark's "The Damsel as it takes the reader on a harrowing flight through Mexico, although this book was written decades earlier. The main character is a pulp writer who is in Mexico to write because rents are cheaper and stumbles across "a little brunette turista" who had an accident with a Mexican General, who offers to settle up the affair over drinks at her hotel room "Connors didn't blame him for looking. She was a little honey" dressed "in white slacks so sheer the rolled hem of her scanties showed, and a V-necked bolero to match that left her mid-riff bare." One thing leads to another and after gunshots and bodies falling, Connors and Eleana are in full flight across the entire country of Mexico with every member of law enforcement out to get them. The story is top notch and truly cements Keene as a pulp writer. The interactions between these two ring true and the heat flowing between them is red-hot.

You will not do wrong reading either one of these terrific stories first. They are both first-class.

[Le Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

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[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-written, this pulp noir features a movie script writer framed for a murder while he's on a binger. Good introduction to Day Keene's prodigious output.

[Kurt Reichenbaugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Framed in Guilt was Keene's first novel, and not so good. My Flesh is Sweet is better. The Stark House two-fer is worth getting however.