What do you think?
Rate this book
Al Wheeler #37
Burden of Guilt
Fine Book. 4 1/4 By 7`` Murder & Sex mystery. Only slight signs of age. CLEAN.
127 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 1, 1970
1 person is currently reading
20 people want to read
About the author
Carter Brown
556 books52 followersCarter Brown was the pseudonym of Alan Geoffrey Yates (1923-1985), who was born in London and educated in Essex.
He married Denise Mackellar and worked as a sound engineer for Gaumont-British films before moving to Australia and taking up work in public relations.
In 1953 he became a full-time writer and produced nearly 200 novels between then and his retirement in 1981.
He also wrote as Tex Conrad and Caroline Farr.
His series heroes were Larry Baker, Danny Boyd, Paul Donavan, Rick Holman, Andy Kane, Randy Roberts, Mavis Siedlitz and Al Wheeler.
He married Denise Mackellar and worked as a sound engineer for Gaumont-British films before moving to Australia and taking up work in public relations.
In 1953 he became a full-time writer and produced nearly 200 novels between then and his retirement in 1981.
He also wrote as Tex Conrad and Caroline Farr.
His series heroes were Larry Baker, Danny Boyd, Paul Donavan, Rick Holman, Andy Kane, Randy Roberts, Mavis Siedlitz and Al Wheeler.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 29, 2024
Burden of Guilt (1970) is the 41st entry in Brown’s Al Wheeler series, closer to the end of the 52-book series than the beginning, which ran from 1956 to 1981. The book opens with “[t]he sun edging up over the horizon, and the shadows of the leaves, moving in the breeze, dappled the house with a vaguely psychedlic pattern.” Pine County Lieutenant Al Wheeler is investigating a report of a homicide, but before he can view the corpse meets a guy in an armchair, smoking a fat cigar, and with a massive bald head and hooded gray eyes, giving him a Caligula-type Roman emperor look, later identified as disbarred union lawyer Gerard Kingsley. Wheeler can see the jack-knifed body of a woman with a nightmare of bruises and welts on her lower body and upper thighs and a blackened tongue clenched between her teeth and swollen purple marks around her neck. She was obviously strangled to death.
But Kingsley is more concerned with keeping this evidence on the down low, particularly since the corpse was Shirley Lucas, a professional call girl from San Francisco and his wife, who was with him on this trip, discovered the body and, for obvious reasons, was not happy about it. The wife, Adele Kingsley, is described as a sleek blonde tigress who prowls into the room. “[H]er full lips were fixed in a hellraking downward curve which said she didn’t give a goddamn for man or beast.” Of course, this being a Carter Brown novel, Adele is “wearing a lime-green bikini that almost wasn’t there, it was so skimpy.” And, it often wasn’t, but Adele always seemed to have a “lustful man-eating look in her eyes.”
Wheeler is quickly told that Kingsley is involved in meetings regarding a bust-out union racket, where racketeers find an unorganized plant, put in paid agitators to stir up trouble, and make impossible demands to the ownership, all to get a secret deal and an annual rake-off. When asked what he does to investigate, Wheeler says it is a dull routine, but he did not know any one better. All that happens is he asks questions and hopes for truthful answers.
Wheeler is also told that Mr. Cordain, one of the principals involved in the union meetings, might have information, since he probably hired the two call girls, the other one being Wanda Blair, who wanders around the lobby in a flimsy nightgown thing that came all the way down to the tops of her shapely thighs.
As par for the course in Carter Brown’s world (and his novels were among the best-selling books of all time), much of the detective work is centered around erotic and graphic (though brief) descriptions of Wheeler’s investigation, particularly as regards the lime-green bikini clad Adele. Often, little is left to the imagination. There was a reason tens of millions of Carter Brown novels were sold.
But Kingsley is more concerned with keeping this evidence on the down low, particularly since the corpse was Shirley Lucas, a professional call girl from San Francisco and his wife, who was with him on this trip, discovered the body and, for obvious reasons, was not happy about it. The wife, Adele Kingsley, is described as a sleek blonde tigress who prowls into the room. “[H]er full lips were fixed in a hellraking downward curve which said she didn’t give a goddamn for man or beast.” Of course, this being a Carter Brown novel, Adele is “wearing a lime-green bikini that almost wasn’t there, it was so skimpy.” And, it often wasn’t, but Adele always seemed to have a “lustful man-eating look in her eyes.”
Wheeler is quickly told that Kingsley is involved in meetings regarding a bust-out union racket, where racketeers find an unorganized plant, put in paid agitators to stir up trouble, and make impossible demands to the ownership, all to get a secret deal and an annual rake-off. When asked what he does to investigate, Wheeler says it is a dull routine, but he did not know any one better. All that happens is he asks questions and hopes for truthful answers.
Wheeler is also told that Mr. Cordain, one of the principals involved in the union meetings, might have information, since he probably hired the two call girls, the other one being Wanda Blair, who wanders around the lobby in a flimsy nightgown thing that came all the way down to the tops of her shapely thighs.
As par for the course in Carter Brown’s world (and his novels were among the best-selling books of all time), much of the detective work is centered around erotic and graphic (though brief) descriptions of Wheeler’s investigation, particularly as regards the lime-green bikini clad Adele. Often, little is left to the imagination. There was a reason tens of millions of Carter Brown novels were sold.
December 31, 2015
The author Carter Brown first came to my attention based on the artwork of Robert E. McGinnis. As an artist-illustration, McGinnis is responsible for placing countless, sultry, scantily-clad ladies on the covers of numerous pulp fiction novels, including a great many Carter Brown books. With tawdry covers, that are now considered art, one is easily drawn to these fetching covers – but, what about the words behind the covers?
Burden of Guilt finds police detective Al Wheeler looking into the brutal murder of a call girl, found naked in the garden of a disgraced, disbarred lawyer, who is caught up in some nefarious union dealings. During the investigation of this young woman’s murder, Wheeler comes up against some deadly characters, seductive women, and finds himself making one fateful decision that places a burden of guilt on his shoulders.
Carter Brown was born Alan Geoffrey Yates in England; having become a successful pulp fiction writer in the 1950’s, at one time Yates was commissioned to produce one short novel and two long novel’s each month. All in all, Yates published 322 Carter Brown novels – and was rumored to be one of President John F. Kennedy’s favorite authors.
Three hundred and twenty-two novels and a writing pace that most of us today couldn’t keep up with. It was time to read a Carter Brown novel. Based on the length of Burden of Guilt, I’m assuming it was one of Brown’s short novels – short yet surprisingly entertaining. Yates has a way with words, and knows how to weave in interesting mystery, which made Burden of Guilt a thoroughly enjoyable read. Of course, some of the dialogue is dated and certainly male characters back then were definitely chauvinists, but still, despite that, having read my first Carter Brown novel, I’ll definitely explore a few more. One down, and another 321 to go, I guess.
Burden of Guilt finds police detective Al Wheeler looking into the brutal murder of a call girl, found naked in the garden of a disgraced, disbarred lawyer, who is caught up in some nefarious union dealings. During the investigation of this young woman’s murder, Wheeler comes up against some deadly characters, seductive women, and finds himself making one fateful decision that places a burden of guilt on his shoulders.
Carter Brown was born Alan Geoffrey Yates in England; having become a successful pulp fiction writer in the 1950’s, at one time Yates was commissioned to produce one short novel and two long novel’s each month. All in all, Yates published 322 Carter Brown novels – and was rumored to be one of President John F. Kennedy’s favorite authors.
Three hundred and twenty-two novels and a writing pace that most of us today couldn’t keep up with. It was time to read a Carter Brown novel. Based on the length of Burden of Guilt, I’m assuming it was one of Brown’s short novels – short yet surprisingly entertaining. Yates has a way with words, and knows how to weave in interesting mystery, which made Burden of Guilt a thoroughly enjoyable read. Of course, some of the dialogue is dated and certainly male characters back then were definitely chauvinists, but still, despite that, having read my first Carter Brown novel, I’ll definitely explore a few more. One down, and another 321 to go, I guess.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews