Richard Prather - Always Leave 'Em Dying

[dem bones]

Richard S. Prather - Always Leave 'Em Dying (Fawcett, Gold Medal, 1954)

THIS'LL KILL YOU ....

.... it almost killed me, tangling with that cult of evil and its high priest of lechery. A gorgeous lamb had been sacrificed on the altar of sin, and another girl had been chosen to follow her.

Their leader was a man who dressed in black and looked like an undertaker who'd embalmed himself by mistake. He offered me a helping hand - with a gun in it.

"Shell Scott," he said. "It's my sacred duty to kill you."

Only got this today and it will have to patiently await its turn (especially as I've finally got stuck right into The Second Black Book Of Horror!), but I thought maybe some of our crime-busters could fill me in on this Shell Scott - Private Detective character? All I know about Richard S. Prather is that he wrote stacks of Fawcett paperbacks with groovy titles like Dig That Crazy Grave, Darling, It's Death, Strip For Murder and Slab Happy (presumably chronicling the further adventures of Scott ?)

[jkdunham]

Prolific producer of paperback originals who gave up writing to grow avocados. You can read Richard S. Prather's obit from The Independent here;

Richard S. Prather 1921-2007

"Strip for Murder (1955) has Scott at large in a nudist colony, at one stage fronting a hundred nudists at their vigorous morning callisthenics, and finally escaping from the bad guys, au naturel, in a hot-air balloon sailing over downtown Los Angeles."

See also The Richard S. Prather/Shell Scott Website

[dem bones]

Much obliged, s (and for the helpful info on Murder And Sudden Death yesterday). The Prather/ Scott site is an instant education. I just read Prather's tribute to cover artist Robert McGinnis whose painting for Strip For Murder was responsible for it becoming "a best seller even among people who couldn't read". Judge for yourself HERE.

[dem bones]

"Their current campaign - there was always a current campaign - was plastered over the papers and was directed, as usual, against what they called "filth." To me it was merely further proof that the Guardians wanted a return to those good old days when women covered up everything except their instincts: it was, basically, a frantic protest against "cleavage".

Prather hits the ground running with a straitjacketed Shell Scott dragged to a cell in the Lunatic Asylum! How did it come to this?

It all began with his investigation into the disappearance of sixteen-year-old looker and goodie two-shoes Felicity Gifford, a member of LA's Trammelite cult. Shell's not a great one for the "religious" factions that permeate the City and he detests the Trammelite's leader, stick-insect thin Arthur "The All-High" Trammel and his seven-strong inner circle, The Guardians (!). It's mutual. Trammel had tried to hire Shell when his sect's extensive pornography collection was stolen (they need the stuff to show what they're fighting against) and the PI had laughed him out of his office.

Scott reckons it would be a laugh to confront Trammel on his own patch and so it proves. The leader, of course, assures Shell that he has no idea where the missing girl might be, and neither have his Guardians (five grim-faced old harridans - I think the author is intimating that, even worse than being ancient, they're also lesbians - and a guy who seems permanently amused). Advised that his "filthy habits and nasty thoughts" aren't welcome in such decent society, an angry Shell asks the All-High if he ever recovered his porno library which doesn't go down at all well: "You've made a grave mistake, talking to us like that, Scott!" ....

So far, just the one product placement, but a neat (if possibly, less than authentic) one: "Stomach tied in knots? Try GUTBALM."