Dead as a Dummy by "Geoffrey Holmes"
I just love my “job.” I just lay around, read and play cyber shlock Sherlock. For this little post I decided to tackle Dead as a Dummy, initially published in 1943 as Hill of the Terrified Monk. The murder mystery is set in Arizona. Bonus. I miss the old dustbowl. And it features a Mexican Indian Police Detective, Jose Manuel Madero. Take that Tony Hillerman! A Mexican Indian detective in 1940′s fiction is about as common as a Mexican Indian bond trader today. The author does a great job of capturing the local color, all the way down to the Charros, the crazy sideways lightening, and the lack of anything resembling a blooming plant.
Geoffrey Homes is a pen name for Daniel Mainwaring. A big time Hollywood screenwriter. A couple years after this book he wrote Build my Gallows High which became the film noir classic Out of the Past. Mainwaring was responsible for the screenplay for Out of the Past. Ka-Ching. After a career that included such day jobs as private eye, reporter, and movie publicist, Mainwaring was finally in his forties able to take it easy and rake in the bucks as a screenwriter.
Death Is Like That by John Spain
I truly believe that trash is an art form. But how do you know if what you have is collectable trash or just junk?
Referencing his seminal work Magnificent Obsession, the Director Douglas Sirk explained la difference:
“..There is a very short difference between high art and trash, and trash that contains the element of craziness is by this very quality nearer to art.”
. . .Hence Jeff Koons.
This week I’d like to present one of the masters of trash art — Rudolph Belarski.
Belarski’s covers glow and simmer with color, intensity and a touch of the bizarre. Usually the action radiates outward from a specific point on the girls “fleshy” torso–a Belarski girl NEVER wears a bra. Men are so obvious sometimes.
