Mon 12 Jul 2021
Archived GOLD MEDAL Paperback Review: RICHARD HIMMEL – I Have Gloria Kirby.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[7] Comments
RICHARD HIMMEL – I Have Gloria Kirby. Gold Medal #179, paperback original, 1951. Reprinted by Gold Medal several times.
Gloria Kirby was Johnny Maguire’s first love, and when she comes storming back into his life, it’s at least fireworks all over again. But she’s in trouble, hooked on dope, and on the lam with $70,000 in hot money, and who else can she turn to?
Maguire’s not a private aye, but as the next thing but, he’s a semi-successful lawyer, one who’s fought his way up out of a neighborhood on the wrong side of the tracks, the same neighborhood that spawned Gloria Kirby, and her currant boy friend, the notorious Danny Nelson, who wants her back.
Although the fatal attraction of raw sex appeal seems overstated, it is a theme that always struck home in a simpler age. Maguire’s love life is so messed up as to brand him a hopeless romantic, yet with a girl like Tina at home, I doubt that my eye would wander quite so easily.
As for the story, maybe you think you could take it from here. Maybe so, but only if you kept things moving and at the same time mixed things up pretty well by introducing a secondary problem Who stole the money in the first place, and why?
Rating: B
The Johnny Maguire series —
I’ll Find You. Gold Medal 1950
The Chinese Keyhole. Gold Medal 1951
I Have Gloria Kirby. Gold Medal 1951
Two Deaths Must Die. Gold Medal 1954
The Rich and the Damned. Gold Medal 1958
July 13th, 2021 at 6:03 pm
It’s an extraordinary technique to be able to write a ‘page turner’. Mystery and suspense yarns, such as these. I myself don’t see how even the lowest tier of authors pulled it off. First, going to the trouble of concocting some diabolical plot, then making it plausible, conceiving realistic characters and authentic dialogue in which to deliver the unraveling of the secret, and feeding it all out in tiny drips and drabs to a reader in a way which keeps us hanging on. Phenomenal.
July 13th, 2021 at 7:56 pm
Even the lowest tier of authors would be head ad shoulders above me if ever I tried to write a mystery. You wouldn’t want to read it, that’s for sure. And for all the reasons you mention, and more.
July 13th, 2021 at 7:28 pm
Quite a bit of Himmel and the Johnny McGuire books are available under $3 in ebook form from Cutting Edge books as well as other GM gems in several genres.
July 13th, 2021 at 7:57 pm
It’s remarkable how many of those old Gold Medal paperbacks are still in print, one way or the other!!
July 14th, 2021 at 7:52 pm
Tallying up aside from the obvious stuff like JDM and Richard Prather, Peter Rabe, Philip Atlee, John Flagg, Dan Marlowe, Charles Williams, Stephen Marlowe, Donald Hamilton, Jack Byng, Lou Cameron, numerous Westerns, some sleaze, and many more GM writers and titles are available in ebook or specialty house publications.
July 14th, 2021 at 8:39 pm
Not a shabby list of writers, that’s for sure, although I have to confess that Jack Byng is a new one on me.
July 14th, 2021 at 10:18 pm
‘I Have Gloria Kirby’ is one of the best book titles I’ve ever laid eyes on