Gun in Cheek: An Affectionate Guide to the "Worst" in Mystery Fiction

by Bill Pronzini

A classic collection of the worst writing ever to appear in the mystery. It is funny as hell, and a wonderful subject for a book. Pronzini handles it beautifully. This book is hard to find and it is a must for collectors. If you find a copy, buy it at almost any price.

Genres: Mystery, Humor, Nonfiction, Books About Books, Pop Culture, Reference, Short Stories

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Mystery Writers of America Awards "Grand Master" 2008
Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1999) for Boobytrap
Edgar Awards Best Novel nominee (1998) for A Wasteland of Strangers
Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (1997) for Sentinels
Shamus Awards "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) 1987
Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1982) for Hoodwink

Married to author Marcia Muller.

Pseudonyms:
Robert Hart Davis (collaboration with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)
Jack Foxx
William Jeffrey (collaboration with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)
Alex Saxon

Reviews

[Carly · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're a mystery reader and a fan of "so bad it's good," then Gun In Cheek is the book for you. It's pretty much MST3K (Mystery Science Theater 3000) for detective fiction. As any mystery reader knows, mysteries are extremely formulaic, with a special formula for each subgenre, from classic golden-age to cozy to gothic to hardboiled to spy fiction. With a good mystery, the formula is satisfying and any deviations are intriguing. With bad mysteries, the results can be utterly hilarious. Pronzini has coined a great term for these wonderfully terrible works: "alternative classic." Given that this book was first published before I was born, he invented the phrase long before "alternative facts" came along.

So what makes a good "alternative classic"? Part of it is the writing. Some of my favourites, starting with one from the editor himself:

"When would this phantasmagoria that was all too real reality end? He asked himself."
Bill Pronzini, The Stalker

"Her hips were beautifully arched and her breasts were like proud flags waving triumphantly. She carried them high and mighty."
Ed Noon, The Case of the Violent Virgin

"A hint of excitement hovered around Miss Kane, looking well in an afternoon frock and explaining that she had obtained a weekend leave and was looking forward to the party."
R.A.J. Walling, The Corpse Without a Clue

"All in the same motion, he snap-kicked the man in the right armpit! The knife clattered to the floor as Mace finished the slob off with a mule-kick to his scrotum. Looking like a goof who had just discovered that ice-cream cones are hollow, the man sagged to the floor."
Joseph Rosenberger, Kung Fu: The Year of the Tiger

"The old woman's breasts were balanced over her folded hands like the loaded scales of justice waiting for her final judgment."
Leslie Paige, Queen of Hearts

"Hope flared in her dark eyes as she grabbed the rope I had tossed to her drowning brain."
Naked Villainy, Carl G. Hodges

And consider this eloquent bit of dialogue:

"'Dan Turner squalling,' I yeeped. 'Flag your diapers to Sylvia Hempstead's igloo. There's been a croaking.'"
Robert Leslie Bellem, "Come Die for Me"

Attempts at introspection are also a great way to achieve an alternative classic. Take this epic bit of impending doom:

"When it had settled itself, unperceived, in its lurking place--the Hand stole out again--closed the window-door, re-locked it.
Hand or claw? Hand of man or woman or paw of beast? In the name of God--whose hand?"
Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Bat

And how's this for the start of a gothic?

"I know now that there must have been a touch of madness in me that raw October night as I went to Cemetery Key and the house of horror known as Stormhaven."
Jennifer Hale, Stormhaven

And there's a special way for detective fiction to achieve Alternative Classic status: the mysteries themselves. Sometimes it's a convoluted, incoherent mystery with a climax disturbingly similar to:


From bugged belly-buttons to murder by fire-extinguisher-nozzle-foam-in-ear to murder by embarrassment, there is an impressive variety of ridiculous creativity in the collection. I can't decide whether I prefer the man who becomes an evil avenger because he's so upset he went bald or the archaeologist who goes mad and wanders around in gloopy phosphorescent mud. There are the Death Rays, and Giant V-Rays, and "Crime Rays," and probably a few other rays I forgot about. (And yes, here's the obligatory M&W sketch.)



There are "blood-sucking, man-eating" bushes, a man born with the head of a wolf, and a half-spider half-octopus monster called the Red Crawl which turns out (naturally) to be a man in a costume and a mask. There are vampires who, when unmasked, prove to be costumed people complete with a vampire bat that is actually a "tiny monoplane" whose engine is "fitted with a silencer" that flies around "with the wheels tucked up inside the fuselage." But my favourite has to be the octopi. There are actually multiple stories involving a death-pit of octopi, which, we are told, are

"The world's most awful bundle of awfulness, a writhing, squirming mass of hell-fury, attaching itself to its victim with four hundred vacuum cups on its eight snaky legs [...] in short, it is the monster-supreme of earth or sea or Hell."

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, but I will say that I'm not sure Pronzini necessarily gives the writers credit. While it made them no less entertaining to read, quite a few of the stories struck me as intentional parody, such as Joseph Rosenberger's confrontation in a warehouse filled with "Musical Panda Dolls" between the protagonist--named the Death Merchant--and a killer. I thoroughly enjoyed it all, but I did read it in small doses-- you can only take so much "alternative classic" at a time. If any of this sounded entertaining to you, I can promise that Gun in Cheek has more where it came from. Take the opportunity to savor, down to the last bugged belly-button and twenty-pound attack octopi.

~~I received this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Dover Publications, in exchange for my honest review. Thanks!~~

Cross-posted on BookLikes.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book of possibly loving criticism from a very well known author of detective fiction, before he became really famous. There's a certain amount of cliqueishness here. Possibly that's why the mystery genre took a steep decline right about the time this book was published that lasted until the rise of the cozy many years later.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arthur Conan Doyle. James M. Cain. Raymond Chandler. Ross MacDonald. Eric Ambler. Agatha Christie. These are names that are familiar to most fans of mystery writing as the classic authors of the genre, who are still read and admired today. But what about Doyle's brother-in-law, E.W. Hornung? Or Sax Rohmer, the author of the much-imitated Fu Manchu series? Sidney Horler? Robert Leslie Bellem, A.E. Apple, Michael Morgan (the pen name of Teet Carle and Dean A. Dorn), Mary Roberts Rinehart (creator of "The Bat"), Hayden Norwood, Michael Avallone, Richard S. Prather? Who remembers and celebrates them? Bill Pronzini does, in this book about the deservedly forgotten mystery novel releases of decades past. To the author, all of the above writers were creators of at least one "alternative" classic, "alternative" in this case meaning laughable for either absurd plot contrivances, or ridiculous language, or bizarre characters, or a number of other offenses to good taste. Pronzini groups the writers roughly according to genre or period, and dwells on and quotes liberally from a few titles that really are packed with howlers.

It is important to point out that this is not just a book about bad writing from pathetic hacks. Some of the writers included here were very popular in their day. Carter Brown, for example, was (at the time of book's writing) the 3rd best selling mystery writer of them all, behind Mickey Spillane (sic), the undisputed champ, and Erle Stanley Gardner. Pronzini does not take any swipes at the champ (altho I wish he had), but he does take Brown to task for being "sophomoric." William Le Quex gets credit for being the grandfather of the British espionage novel, but as Pronzini demonstrates, his work was surpassed by greater talents, and it comes across as pretty musty and silly in the present day. Carroll John Daly shares credit with Dashiell Hammett for starting the "hard-boiled" school of tough detective stories; in fact he published his first story in 1923, shortly before Hammett, and was very popular in his time. But Pronzini points out that his prose was the inspiration for a lot of mediocre writing that followed.

"Gun in Cheek" is also a book about publishing companies. Without dwelling on them too extensively, Pronzini recalls a number of publishers from the past. Ace and their series of double books - 2 for the price of one. Turn the book around and upside down and there is another run-of-the-mill thriller. I remember seeing these in my distant youth. Phoenix Press is another that gets recalled, and it persisted for decades thru several transformations, along with its chief editor, Alice Sachs. Pronzini mentions a few other genres that sort of cross over into mystery on occasion, such as the gothic genre, established by Horace Walpole, which usually concern a lovely young lady and a house. A couple of Westerns cross over the line too. Pronzini stays away from romances and sci-fi and soap opera-type tales, altho they probably generated a large number of alternative classics of their own. The same goes for television and movie mysteries.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this from the publisher through NetGalley to read and review.

GUN IN CHEEK by Bill Pronzini is a hilarious look into some of the books that are so bad that they are good, or at least fun and worthy of cult status much as something like “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!” is to filmdom.
Highly recommended for those who wish to take a break from their usual reads in the pulp fiction & murder>mystery categories to enjoy the author’s humorous takes on books in those genres that either weren't very carefully thought out in terms of storyline, or crafted by those who would have been better served to find something (anything) else to do with their time besides putting pen to the stories represented here , yet they are brought back into the light for all to see for their incredibly flawed existence and place in history as being the worst of the worst.
4 stars

[Bev · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gun in Cheek (1982) is a collection of the "best" of the worst in American and British crime fiction. Bill Pronzini provides the reader with a run-down of synopses and large snatches of quotations of what, in his opinion, represents some of the worst stories and writing in various subgenres of mystery--everything from hard boiled dicks to Had-I-But-Known damsels in distress and amateur detectives to the boys in blue and everything in between. Pronzini's got us covered.

Mike Tooney tells us in his review over at Mystery*File that we shouldn't "try to read this book in one sitting because it just might make you dizzy with laughter." Unfortunately, humor is a subjective thing and I think maybe my sense of humor is far afield from Mike's (and most of the reviewers on Goodreads). I just honestly didn't find many instances where the passages were so doggone funny. Most passages were either examples of just plain bad writing or (especially in the hard boiled line) it seemed like business as usual. After all, hard boiled detective stories seem to corner the market on outlandish descriptions such as this:

She was as lovely as a girl could be without bludgeoning your endocrines. (from Killers Are My Meat by Stephen Marlowe)

The best of the book seems to me to be the tidbits of publishing history that Pronzini gives us along the way. For example, the interesting chapter giving background on Phoenix Press. He also provides details on the development of the various subgenres and his comments on various authors and their characters is often more entertaining than the passages he quotes. In fact, I enjoyed it most when it seemed to be at its most serious--giving facts and background rather than trying to provide passages that I thought sure were supposed to be funny....but weren't. ★★★ (primarily for the history and facts)

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.

[tara bomp · Rating 4 out of 5]

A funny - sometimes laugh out loud so - recap of a bunch of unusually written books, including quotes; an odd kind of love letter to the whole pulp industry and those authors with alternative genius. It also gives a kind of whirlwind tour of the various crime/mystery genres (including the paperback original gothic, kind of strangely). There's something really fascinating to me about the whole system of churned out, hundreds of thousands of very similar words per year publishing and the book was really evocative of that even though it didn't go into much detail, just touched on it. The only problem I had with the book was really wanting more, heh - more plot details, more bad writing, more coverage of different areas of writing etc. Definitely looking forward to reading the sequel.

Note that the book covers a lot of stories which have racist themes or are pretty explicitly racist - he obviously doesn't endorse it but it could easily be uncomfortable to read.

Some random good quotes he gives that I highlighted while reading:

"I do, Ranny, I do and I am happy but I don't feel happy."
"I know, dear, and I feel the same way."

"In plain English, Patterson," said Pye, "nix on the gats!"

"This is verra, verra serious," he said, lapsing into his native tongue."

"I wanted to see the murderer of that beautiful creature seated in the gas chamber. I wanted it so bad my saliva glands throbbed."

"His eyes popped out of his pink-cake face and danced in the air."

"She went up in a puff of smoke, and a startling truth dribbled out of her explosion."

"She swayed toward me, a sob swelling her perky pretty-pretties"

"Drop that corpse, you fool!"

"Dan Turner squalling," I yeeped. "Flag your diapers to Sylvia Hempstead's igloo. There's been a croaking."

"A while ago you mentioned my hardboiled rep. You said I'm considered a dangerous hombre to monkey with. Okay, you're right. Now will you come along willingly or do I bunt you over the crumpet till your sneezer leaks buttermilk?"

my fav title he mentions is probably "Lady, That's My Skull". He also has a lot of great lines writing about the writing eg "This is the second atypical quality: the Mafia generally has better things to do than run amok in Gothic suspense novels, so you almost never find them in one"

[Michael Ritchie · Rating 3 out of 5]

First published in the 80s, this is a salute or tribute, so to speak, to bad mystery and detective fiction. Pronzini quotes dozens of examples of overwritten purple prose or illogical descriptions, and summarizes many nonsensical plots. While I enjoyed much of this, I, like some other readers, have found that there's a thin line between "bad" writing and normal "hard-boiled" or noir writing, and some of the examples he presents to mock I found to be quite effective, as in "The sun was shining its ass off" from Robert B. Parker, or this phrase from an author named Sydney Horler: "My dear old cock-eyed ass, I was waiting for you to be Christian enough to offer me a drink." To each their own, I guess.

[Melisende · Rating 4 out of 5]

Damn you Bill Pronzini! I was jotting down authors names before I reached the back and discovered and neatly listed bibliography. I had every intention of taking your advice to seek out these B-grade gems of the mystery fiction genre, after-all, many a B-grade film has, with time, become a cult classic.

I liked the way Bill uses his chapters to tackle the different aspects of the fictional mystery - the amateur detective, the police investigator, the private eye, the gentleman rogue, the evil oriental - as well as the spy story. We gain an insight into the publishing - and specifically Phoenix Press, who apparently published the majority of these gems (see page 91). There are comparisons between more popular characters with, often, their not so well known contemporaries and imitators.

Pronzini peppers each chapter with some of the best (??) of the writing of these featured authors:
"He keeps on waiting awhile longer. Then, at five o'clock, he gets up, locks the office door, and goes out (in that order)." "Tomorrow was another day." (Robert Twohy's "Slime"). Even some of our more well-known authors make the list (ie: Spillane, West, Basinsky, Brown, Leroux).

The titles of some of these works border on the fantastical and highly imaginable (No Coffin For The Corpse, The Clue of the Leaning Chimney, The Face on the Cutting Room Floor, When Last I Died, No Luck With The Hanged Man) ; the men are invariably rugged, macho and mysoginistic; the women sport bazooka bras and ooze sex appeal; the dialogue is cliched; the villains suitably nefarious. They were quick reads - they were escapism. But don't be fooled - many of these B-graders were at the height of popular fiction during their day and were prolific in their writing - these were the authors that contributed to what we now refer to as "pulp fiction".

"The good mystery gets all the credit, all the attention .... But what about the BAD mystery?" Well, Pronzini has certainly brought together the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in such a way that you may look twice at some of the lesser gems. I know I have.

[Trin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ahh, this is what I had wanted Grady Hendrix's tour of pulp horror, Paperbacks From Hell, to be: i.e., actually funny. The history and analysis of the works in question still comes out fairly scattered, but Pronzini's prose is funny, and he knows when to let the material he's (affectionately) mocking stand for itself. I wish this could have had the luxe, illustrated treatment Paperbacks From Hell got.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hilarious, laugh-out-load tour of the worst of 20th Century crime fiction. Highly recommended, especially for connoisseurs of bad crime novels.

[Calum Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bill Pronzini has read all the "so bad it's funny" mystery fiction so we don't have to. Like reading those books themselves, this was not quite as much fun in practice as it sounds at first - Pronzini's approach is to take a couple of "alternative classics", as he likes to call them, per chapter and then mostly summarise the plots. This is funny and engaging enough, but it gets a bit old. I'd have liked much, much more on the stories behind the authors and behind the publishing houses who pumped this crap out - we get some of this, but I wanted more.

Still, the book is funny and Pronzini's encyclopaedic knowledge of garbage genuinely impressive.

[Chris Browning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crime fiction was sort of my first great love - I’d been a fan of Sherlock Holmes as most twelve year olds of a certain kind inevitably are, had fallen particularly hard for the charms of Jupiter Jones of the Three Investigators and, after a frustrating dalliance with Dame Agatha (still not really a fan), discovered Freeman Wills Crofts’ Inspector French’s Greatest Case at a jumble sale when I was thirteen and never looked back. It’s been a steady part of my book buying since childhood, and I was lucky to amass an excellent collection of Penguin green and whites before people started realising their value

I read crime fiction because my autistic brain likes genre fiction and crime fiction is the PERFECT genre for me: as long as there’s a crime and some detection then the author can just go hog wild. Some crime novels barely bother with crime or detection, and some of them are glorious and many of them are truly terrible. And everyone of them brings me some kind of joy, even when I am incensed by a dumb solution or some silly plotting. Because it’s all a variation of a theme and that’s just catnip for me

So I reckon I know crime fiction pretty well, especially British crime fiction. And since discovering Harry Stephen Keeler and his most recent publisher, the wayward and brilliant Ramble House, I’ve been very much enjoying the sillier and dafter side of that world. But it turns out I know hardly anything of the *really* wild stuff. This book is an extraordinary and truly deep dive into some of the maddest things I have ever read. It’s not only a joy to read, but it’s also a testament to someone driven like I am to just try and find the most outlying and outlandish books they can

I won’t go on much further because I really, genuinely and deeply implore you to read this silliness for yourself, but what I will say is that I particularly enjoyed how Pronzini approaches this stuff. I discovered a lot of wayward cinema through the Medved brothers, but their books are sneery and range from deliberately philistine views of art or smug attacks on films that aren’t that bad (I’ve seen Manos - Ed Wood is nowhere near as bad as that film is). Thank god Pronzini sails above that sort of level of writing. He’s angered by racism and prejudice and sexism, but he also sort of loves this ridiculousness. He’s a charming host and most importantly an enthusiast. He loved this frankly absurd books and, like all the best works like this, cannot wait to share them with you

[Bobby H · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author knows his stuff. Good history of mystery genre with deviations into thriller and Yellow Peril subgenres among others as well as peek into men"s adventure novels. Makes you wonder how companies could publish such badly written books.
Would have liked to see more references to 70s and 80s novels and less 30s and pre-war stories.

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very, very funny and curated with a fantastic ear for the absurd. A celebration of the "so bad, it's good" subgenre - enjoyable for fans of straight up mysteries and spoof alike.

I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: a classic collection of the worst writing ever to appear in the mystery field. Funny! Which authors would want to appear in this book?

[James Hold · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this around the time it first came out. There's a sequel which I also read. Overall I didn't think much of it since I didn't catch the 'affection' advertised in the title. It has that 'Mystery Science Theater' attitude which I don't care for, essentially ripping on things for the sake of ripping. I said in several places that as a writer myself I don't believe anyone deliberately sets out to produce something awful. It may be the end result, but it wasn't the original intent and to ridicule an author or his product this way is a form of smug cruelty that appeals only to the shallowest of people. Yes, Pronzini does bring up some funny passages, but again, perhaps the writer could have come up with something better if he had the time, resources, helpful editors, or in many cases 'assistants' (aka ghost writers) to correct his work before sending it out. A kinder approach on Pronzini's part would have been appreciated, especially as he himself has never impressed with his so-called 'Nameless Detective' series.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun look at the "best" of the "worst" in mystery writing before 1980. I don't think I'll go out and get any of the books Pronzini quoted from as I have quite a lot already in my to-read stack that might end of contenders for his next sequel.

[Bmj2k · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun! If you think you are a writer, read this.

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little dated seeing the book was over 20 years old at the time of this review and refers to books 20 years pryer, This is no surprise.
But a good entertaining look at his profession.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy.
I think I just did not "get" this book.
I found it relentlessly unfunny and rather tedious.Perhaps my sense of humour needs to be attended to....or is this just an example of cheap shots at easy targets?
I thought it would be a light-hearted history but simple endless repetition of plots and no real analysis turned me off.

[Leyla Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoy the early pulp fiction, unfortunately the stuff that came later, for me, was not that believable or entertaining. This book by Bill Pronzini clarifies some of the history to present day evolution of the gene, I haven't read too many of the writer mentioned or used in the examples so I found the book pretty entertaining, maybe I might search out some of the earlier ones, they sound easy reads and a bit of fun.