He was all set for a free ride-in a hearse First pulp novel by author Marlowe (Milton Lesser), who'd already written many science fiction titles. Gideon Fray observes the deadly underside of Coney Island.
Stephen Marlowe (1928–2008) was the author of more than fifty novels, including nearly two dozen featuring globe-trotting private eye Chester Drum. Born Milton Lesser, Marlowe was raised in Brooklyn and attended the College of William and Mary. After several years writing science fiction under his given name, he legally adopted his pen name, and began focusing on Chester Drum, the Washington-based detective who first appeared in The Second Longest Night (1955).
Although a private detective akin to Raymond Chandler’s characters, Drum was distinguished by his jet-setting lifestyle, which carried him to various exotic locales from Mecca to South America. These espionage-tinged stories won Marlowe acclaim, and he produced more than one a year before ending the series in 1968. After spending the 1970s writing suspense novels like The Summit (1970) and The Cawthorn Journals (1975), Marlowe turned to scholarly historical fiction. He lived much of his life abroad, in Switzerland, Spain, and France, and died in Virginia in 2008.
Marlowe received the Shamus Award, "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) in 1997.
Uber-macho crud about a surly Korean War vet who stomps his way around a Coney Island carnival. Needless to say not one, not two, but three different midway tramps beg him to bang them rotten. What a stud! Even the gay masseuse makes his play and gets stomped silly. Homophobic and annoying.