KARL KRAMER – Fair Game. Popular Library #650, paperback original; 1st printing, March 1955.

   Karl Kramer was the pen name of Edward A. Morris, (1912?-1996?), about whom little more seems to be known, not even the exact dates of his birth and death. He had one story published in the December 1958 issue of Manhunt, “Wait for Death,” and four paperback crime novels published by Monarch Books between 1959 and 1961.

   If Gold Medal was the pinnacle of hard-boiled paperback crime novels in the 1950s, and Monarch was way down on the bottom rung of the latter, that leaves Popular Library as (obviously) somewhere in between. The covers were generally very racy, but whether the stories matched up, I’d say it was doubtful, save for one scene in each and every book that the cover artist was always able to take full advantage of.

   On the average I would say that the Popular Library offerings along these lines was higher than those of Ace and the Ace Double line, but that was before I read Fair Game, which no matter what scale you might care to use, most definitely brings that average down.

   It starts slow, stays slow for a long time, then ends in a blaze of action that left me slightly bewildered as to who was on what side and why. It didn’t matter all that much: only one of the characters is mildly interesting.

   The story is told by Steve Conney, a pilot-for-hire who works exclusively for glamorous magazine publisher Helen Abbott, who uses his services not only in the air but in the bedroom — when it serves her needs. Their present assignment: to track down a mysterious Dr. York. Conney does not know why, nor does Helen deign to tell him — but for the first time, she has brought a gun along with her.

   The trail has led them to an isolated resort on lake two-and-a-half hours out of New York City. The place is owned by an old man but managed by his beautiful blonde and widowed daughter-in-law, Eve. Conney’s job as directed by Helen: to get close to her and pump her for information. And eventually that he does — get close to her, I mean, and Helen does not react well.

   More: nothing is what it seems, and Conney is the kind of lunkhead who thinks he knows women but in reality doesn’t have a clue. He might be portrayed well by Charlton Heston. Helen, perhaps someone like Ida Lupino — icy when she wants to be and passionate at other times. The initially cold and aloof Eve, why not Grace Kelly, as long as my make-believe budget can handle it.

   I hope I didn’t make this story more interesting than it is. It isn’t. It’s slow and tedious, but the author, whoever he was, had a passion for flying that carries over to the reader for a brief couple of pages; this partially outweighs all of the story’s other shortcomings.