The Wanton One, by James Rubel
Great 1960 he-man shamus story, with adorably innocent sex
(Review posted 20 Aug 2004 03:11:55)

I have this adorable book. It's called "The Wanton One" (not "The Wonton One" like I keep almost writing), by James Rubel (a Newsstand Library Magenta Book, 1960, 50¢). Purest pulp. It actually begins (We Are Not Making This Up) "She was something special in blondes". And it has the cutest little sex scenes:

She was proficient, capable, incredibly fascinating in her every movement. In very short order I found myself under the sheet with a blonde lovely playing jockey to my horse.

Isn't that precious? "Jockey to my horse".

Anyway, there's this guy who used to be a private detective and is now a veterinarian, and he has all these fast friends including at least three attractive young women who want to go to bed with him, and somebody gets murdered and the guy is a suspect and so are some of the young women, and there's a mysterious ceramic dolphin that may be cursed or something, and there's a good cop and a bad cop, and a couple of hired goons, and gunplay, and so on.

It's not amazingly noir, in that most of the attractive young women that he goes to bed with survive the book (and in fact in the very last scene he's frolicking in bed with one of them), and he has only a moderately bitter outlook on life, and there are no really major betrayals or anything. So it's lightweight PI pulp rather than heavyweight PI pulp.

The most fun thing about it from my pov at the moment is the sex and the manliness. In this particular copy (which no you can't borrow unless you ask much more nicely than that) there's a glued-in insert offering membership in the Reserve Copy Club. The offer has a charming little naked woman reclining underneath the logo, and promises "lusty yarns with racy plots, exciting locales, bold characters, and vigorous, uninhibited dialog".

Va va va voom!