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No good from a corpse
Legendary SciFi writer Leigh Brackett (who won a posthumous award for the screenplay to Empire Strikes Back), began her career as a writer trying to reach the pages of Black Mask. She was never successful in this, but her Chandler-influenced novel No Good From a Corpse was so impressive in its hard-boiled dialogue that Howard Hawks insisted its author, unseen, be brought in to work on the screenplay adaption of The Big Sleep (together with a fella by the name of Faulkner.) Though Hawks was stunned to discover that Leigh was a woman, she got the job, and worked on what was probably the best film adaptation of a Chandler novel.
No Good From a Corpse offers hard-boiled private eye Ed Clive, who gets involved with a dead girl, and suspects every one of her boyfriends--an ex-husband, a playboy, a blackmailer and a brute. There's a woman suspect as well, and a long chase through Sunset Strip.
164 pages, ebook
First published February 20, 1943
27 people are currently reading
398 people want to read
About the author
Leigh Brackett
399 books242 followersLeigh Brackett was born on December 7, 1915 in Los Angeles, and raised near Santa Monica. Having spent her youth as an athletic tom-boy - playing volleyball and reading stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs and H Rider Haggard - she began writing fantastic adventures of her own. Several of these early efforts were read by Henry Kuttner, who critiqued her stories and introduced her to the SF personalities then living in California, including Robert Heinlein, Julius Schwartz, Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton - and another aspiring writer, Ray Bradbury.
In 1944, based on the hard-boiled dialogue in her first novel, No Good From a Corpse, producer/director Howard Hawks hired Brackett to collaborate with William Faulkner on the screenplay of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.
Brackett maintained an on-again/off-again relationship with Hollywood for the remainder of her life. Between writing screenplays for such films as Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Hatari!, and The Long Goodbye, she produced novels such as the classic The Long Tomorrow (1955) and the Spur Award-winning Western, Follow the Free Wind (1963).
Brackett married Edmond Hamilton on New Year's Eve in 1946, and the couple maintained homes in the high-desert of California and the rural farmland of Kinsman, Ohio.
Just weeks before her death on March 17, 1978, she turned in the first draft screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back and the film was posthumously dedicated to her.
In 1944, based on the hard-boiled dialogue in her first novel, No Good From a Corpse, producer/director Howard Hawks hired Brackett to collaborate with William Faulkner on the screenplay of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.
Brackett maintained an on-again/off-again relationship with Hollywood for the remainder of her life. Between writing screenplays for such films as Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Hatari!, and The Long Goodbye, she produced novels such as the classic The Long Tomorrow (1955) and the Spur Award-winning Western, Follow the Free Wind (1963).
Brackett married Edmond Hamilton on New Year's Eve in 1946, and the couple maintained homes in the high-desert of California and the rural farmland of Kinsman, Ohio.
Just weeks before her death on March 17, 1978, she turned in the first draft screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back and the film was posthumously dedicated to her.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 32 reviews
February 7, 2021
I was curious to read this as it was described as a 1940s novel in the “hardboiled” genre, but one that was written by a female author. In the forties that was obviously quite unusual.
I’m not quite clear about the difference between “hardboiled” and “noir”. I always thought noir was supposed to feature dark themes and morally ambivalent heroes, but “hardboiled” seems to be more loosely defined. Wherever this book sits, I would say that when Leigh Brackett decided to write a pulp-style novel, she went all in. The book’s central character, a P.I. called Ed Clive, is a cynical tough guy, and the story also features lowlife ex-cons, blowsy women, and a femme fatale. There’s also plenty of action, which is what you want with this sort of book.
I felt the plot was a bit over-complicated. There were more twists and turns than a double fisherman’s knot. I do though have a sort of fondness for these 1940s pulp novels, for the background feel and for the dialogue. The four-star rating is for comparison with others in the genre.
I’m not quite clear about the difference between “hardboiled” and “noir”. I always thought noir was supposed to feature dark themes and morally ambivalent heroes, but “hardboiled” seems to be more loosely defined. Wherever this book sits, I would say that when Leigh Brackett decided to write a pulp-style novel, she went all in. The book’s central character, a P.I. called Ed Clive, is a cynical tough guy, and the story also features lowlife ex-cons, blowsy women, and a femme fatale. There’s also plenty of action, which is what you want with this sort of book.
I felt the plot was a bit over-complicated. There were more twists and turns than a double fisherman’s knot. I do though have a sort of fondness for these 1940s pulp novels, for the background feel and for the dialogue. The four-star rating is for comparison with others in the genre.
March 1, 2020
This is hardboiled noir detective fiction at its very best; it's the novel that led Howard Hawks to sign Brackett to collaborate with William Faulkner on the screenplay for Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. Those iconic lines that Bogart (and John Wayne and Harrison Ford and on and on) said in our favorite films were put there by Leigh Brackett, who, somewhat paradoxically, spent more of her time writing (very good) science-fantasy for the pulps of the day than anything else. This novel captures the feel of Hollywood during World War II excellently, and all the pictures I had in my mind as I read it were in black and white. It's a terrific story featuring distinctive characters that jump off the page and yell at you; mentally casting them with the Golden Age stars was great fun. It's a very well thought out and challenging puzzle, too, with some surprising but intelligent twists and turns. I recommend it highly to mystery buffs.
October 21, 2024
Best known as a science fiction writer, Leigh Brackett’s first novel, No Good From a Corpse (1944), was actually a hardboiled mystery novel. She wrote five crime novels in all, including in addition to No Good From a Corpse, Stranger at Home (1946), An Eye for an Eye (1957), The Tiger Among Us (1957), and Silent Partner (1969).
Set in 1940’s Los Angeles, the novel features hard-talking Edmond Clive as a private eye, just returning on the train to Los Angeles and being met at the train station by a nightclub singer he is smitten with, but unable to secure a relationship with. Clive wishes he could have made things work with Laurel, and is visibly jealous of her other would-be suitors. They have that kind of tortured romance where you know they love each other more than the stars are bright in the sky, but for reasons that exist they cannot have each other. “She looked up at him,” Brackett tells us, “as though there were no place else in the universe to look. There was a light in her that blinded him.” He pulls her into his arms and kisses her, but she tells him “I’m no good, Ed. I never have been.” And then, like Bogart speaking, Clive tells Laurel: “Every new man to you is like a new toy to a kid. I just couldn’t play it that way.” When she tells him that she always came back to him, he says she came back because she could not get him.
The entire atmosphere of the novel is captured in the first paragraphs, with Clive seeing Laurel Dane as he came into the tunnel, “wearing a white raincoat with the hood thrown back. There were raindrops caught in her soft black hair, but the drops in her thick lashes never came out of the Los Angeles sky. Her arms went around him tight.” Think Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in the Big Sleep and you would be right on the mark. Hollywood legend has it that, after reading No Good From a Corpse, director Howard Hawks hired Bracket as well as William Faulkner to write the script for The Big Sleep. It should come as no surprise then that the same sensibility can be found in Brackett’s novel and the dialogue in it.
Although Laurel is at the center of this hard-boiled tale, Brackett gives the readership a bit of misdirection as Clive meets with a wealthy trio of siblings, along with his assistant, Jonathan Ladd Jones. The trio includes Jane Hammond, who is Mick Hammond’s wife, Mick being Clive’s childhood pal, who seems to have the secret to making women swoon over him, including not just Jane Hammond, but also Laurel. The case brought to his office has to do with what appear to be blackmail letters revealing Mick’s checkered past and Clive wants no part of it as he is on the outs with Mick at one point he tells Laurel that he has known Mick since kindergarten and that bastard will lie to or with any woman in the state to get what he wants. “And he can always get what he wants.” The other two meeting with Clive are Vivien Alcott (Jane’s sister) and their brother Richard.
The meat and potatoes of the story, though, is about Laurel, starting with when Clive gets a phone call, where a whispering voice warned him off Laurel, saying she “was in a spot, pal, and nobody can get her off it.” Clive puts the phone down carefully and realizes his hand is shaking. “In spite of the sizzling radiator, the room had grown quite cold.” And, it continues when Clive figures out what her deep dark past secret is and, when the whispering voice tells Clive that “I just wanted you to know, pal. Laurel’s of her spot, now — for good.”
In typical hardboiled fashion, there is a corpse (remember the title of the novel) and Clive and Mick are the only logical suspects, both having been allegedly passed out when the murder took place in the apartment. Who else could have done it and why? As Brackett later explains, “they shove the cards in your hands on the day you’re born, and you can play ’em any way you want to.”
Brackett was clearly quite skilled at this hardboiled stuff and one wonders what she could have pulled off if her writing energies had been focused solely in this direction.
Set in 1940’s Los Angeles, the novel features hard-talking Edmond Clive as a private eye, just returning on the train to Los Angeles and being met at the train station by a nightclub singer he is smitten with, but unable to secure a relationship with. Clive wishes he could have made things work with Laurel, and is visibly jealous of her other would-be suitors. They have that kind of tortured romance where you know they love each other more than the stars are bright in the sky, but for reasons that exist they cannot have each other. “She looked up at him,” Brackett tells us, “as though there were no place else in the universe to look. There was a light in her that blinded him.” He pulls her into his arms and kisses her, but she tells him “I’m no good, Ed. I never have been.” And then, like Bogart speaking, Clive tells Laurel: “Every new man to you is like a new toy to a kid. I just couldn’t play it that way.” When she tells him that she always came back to him, he says she came back because she could not get him.
The entire atmosphere of the novel is captured in the first paragraphs, with Clive seeing Laurel Dane as he came into the tunnel, “wearing a white raincoat with the hood thrown back. There were raindrops caught in her soft black hair, but the drops in her thick lashes never came out of the Los Angeles sky. Her arms went around him tight.” Think Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in the Big Sleep and you would be right on the mark. Hollywood legend has it that, after reading No Good From a Corpse, director Howard Hawks hired Bracket as well as William Faulkner to write the script for The Big Sleep. It should come as no surprise then that the same sensibility can be found in Brackett’s novel and the dialogue in it.
Although Laurel is at the center of this hard-boiled tale, Brackett gives the readership a bit of misdirection as Clive meets with a wealthy trio of siblings, along with his assistant, Jonathan Ladd Jones. The trio includes Jane Hammond, who is Mick Hammond’s wife, Mick being Clive’s childhood pal, who seems to have the secret to making women swoon over him, including not just Jane Hammond, but also Laurel. The case brought to his office has to do with what appear to be blackmail letters revealing Mick’s checkered past and Clive wants no part of it as he is on the outs with Mick at one point he tells Laurel that he has known Mick since kindergarten and that bastard will lie to or with any woman in the state to get what he wants. “And he can always get what he wants.” The other two meeting with Clive are Vivien Alcott (Jane’s sister) and their brother Richard.
The meat and potatoes of the story, though, is about Laurel, starting with when Clive gets a phone call, where a whispering voice warned him off Laurel, saying she “was in a spot, pal, and nobody can get her off it.” Clive puts the phone down carefully and realizes his hand is shaking. “In spite of the sizzling radiator, the room had grown quite cold.” And, it continues when Clive figures out what her deep dark past secret is and, when the whispering voice tells Clive that “I just wanted you to know, pal. Laurel’s of her spot, now — for good.”
In typical hardboiled fashion, there is a corpse (remember the title of the novel) and Clive and Mick are the only logical suspects, both having been allegedly passed out when the murder took place in the apartment. Who else could have done it and why? As Brackett later explains, “they shove the cards in your hands on the day you’re born, and you can play ’em any way you want to.”
Brackett was clearly quite skilled at this hardboiled stuff and one wonders what she could have pulled off if her writing energies had been focused solely in this direction.
December 26, 2020
No secrets to conceal
Fino a poco tempo fa, lo ammetto, pensavo che Leigh Brackett fosse figlia, o parente, del più famoso Charles, il premio Oscar per la sceneggiatura di Sunset Boulevard scritta insieme a Billy Wilder.
Invece no, era una promettente autrice che grazie a questo romanzo si guadagnò l'interesse dei produttori nientemeno che de Il grande sonno, film destinato ad entrare nella leggenda del cinema hollywoodiano e non solo, che Brackett sceneggiò a sei mani con Jules Furthman e nientemeno che il premio Nobel William Faulkner (che si dice abbia fatto in realtà ben poco se non apporre la sua augusta firma al lavoro, incassando il relativo compenso che probabilmente finì investito in rye o bourbon).
Intermezzo
Una delle mie storie preferite sul film e sul cinema in generale (di cui esistono varie versioni, la seguente è la mia) è quella relativa al mitico omicidio dell'autista degli Sternwood, una delle più famose "loose ends" di ogni tempo.
A un certo punto del romanzo e del film, si scopre che Owen, l'autista della ricca famiglia Sternwood è stato ucciso. Bogart, che era un precisetto come e peggio di Philip Marlowe, chiese ad Howard Hawks chi fosse l'assassino, perchè lui non era riuscito a capirlo dalla sceneggiatura e questo gli impediva di fare al meglio il suo lavoro.
Hawks, che non era uno che perdeva tempo con queste cose, chiese agli sceneggiatori.
Brackett ammise che non era riuscita a capirlo e che nemmeno nel romanzo era chiaro chi fosse il colpevole.
Bogart, scocciato, disse di chiederlo all'autore, l'ombroso Raymond Chandler, il quale semplicemente non rispondeva alle telefonate e ai telegrammi che gli arrivavano dal set.
Allora qualcuno suggerì di chiedere a Faulkner di fare da intermediario, considerato il suo prestigio e il fatto che Chandler non avrebbe fatto uno sgarbo a un simile collega.
Faulkner accetta e chiama Chandler, il quale sulle prime risponde che gli sceneggiatori (specie umana che disprezzava dopo aver lavorato con Billy Wilder, il quale ricambiava il disprezzo pur rispettandone il talento di scrittore, al suo capolavoro Double Indemnity, ma questa è un'altra storia bellissima su cui si potrebbe fare un film, anzi si dovrebbe fare una miniserie) dovevano pur sapere leggere e quindi che lo trovassero da soli nel romanzo.
Faulkner dice, Ray, proprio non si riesce a capire, dacci una mano.
Chandler sempre più scocciato dice che ora ci guarda lui.
Passa qualche ora, Chandler richiama Faulkner, che gli chiede se è venuto a capo del mistero.
"Will, ho riletto il libro. Francamente, non lo so".
Intermezzo
Il romanzo ebbe un buon successo, come detto, ma letto ora è tragicamente invecchiato e sembra una collezione di luoghi comuni del genere e dei tipi umani che da sempre lo affollano, il detective, il suo vice, la bella ricca ereditiera con un amante sbagliato e una parentela anche peggiore, la ragazza in fuga dal suo passato di cui tutti si innamorano, la ragazzina che ha tutti i vizi più comuni e alcuni che si è inventata di sana pianta (vedi alla voce Carmen Sternwood), i poliziotti senza scrupoli, i criminali con meno scrupoli e così via.
In estrema sintesi, il protagonista si trova ad indagare su una serie di delitti apparentemente slegati tra loro, che in realtà hanno un fulcro comune, l'intreccio tra una cantante, un vecchio amico d'infanzia e la sua attuale, ricca consorte, insidiati da un misterioso killer e da contrasti familiari con il fratello e la sorella di lei.
Con il marcio di questi tizi, la Danimarca ci campa cent'anni, mentre i personaggi del libro campano decisamente meno, in media, data la frequenza dei decessi.
Arduo trovare un motivo di interesse per leggere il libro, salvo essere specialisti della materia o, come il sottoscritto, almeno appassionati del genere e devoti fanatici del film cui Brackett prestò la sua opera.
A comprova, in un romanzo zeppo di one-liners a là Chandler, non ho praticamente sottolineato una riga.
Fino a poco tempo fa, lo ammetto, pensavo che Leigh Brackett fosse figlia, o parente, del più famoso Charles, il premio Oscar per la sceneggiatura di Sunset Boulevard scritta insieme a Billy Wilder.
Invece no, era una promettente autrice che grazie a questo romanzo si guadagnò l'interesse dei produttori nientemeno che de Il grande sonno, film destinato ad entrare nella leggenda del cinema hollywoodiano e non solo, che Brackett sceneggiò a sei mani con Jules Furthman e nientemeno che il premio Nobel William Faulkner (che si dice abbia fatto in realtà ben poco se non apporre la sua augusta firma al lavoro, incassando il relativo compenso che probabilmente finì investito in rye o bourbon).
Intermezzo
Una delle mie storie preferite sul film e sul cinema in generale (di cui esistono varie versioni, la seguente è la mia) è quella relativa al mitico omicidio dell'autista degli Sternwood, una delle più famose "loose ends" di ogni tempo.
A un certo punto del romanzo e del film, si scopre che Owen, l'autista della ricca famiglia Sternwood è stato ucciso. Bogart, che era un precisetto come e peggio di Philip Marlowe, chiese ad Howard Hawks chi fosse l'assassino, perchè lui non era riuscito a capirlo dalla sceneggiatura e questo gli impediva di fare al meglio il suo lavoro.
Hawks, che non era uno che perdeva tempo con queste cose, chiese agli sceneggiatori.
Brackett ammise che non era riuscita a capirlo e che nemmeno nel romanzo era chiaro chi fosse il colpevole.
Bogart, scocciato, disse di chiederlo all'autore, l'ombroso Raymond Chandler, il quale semplicemente non rispondeva alle telefonate e ai telegrammi che gli arrivavano dal set.
Allora qualcuno suggerì di chiedere a Faulkner di fare da intermediario, considerato il suo prestigio e il fatto che Chandler non avrebbe fatto uno sgarbo a un simile collega.
Faulkner accetta e chiama Chandler, il quale sulle prime risponde che gli sceneggiatori (specie umana che disprezzava dopo aver lavorato con Billy Wilder, il quale ricambiava il disprezzo pur rispettandone il talento di scrittore, al suo capolavoro Double Indemnity, ma questa è un'altra storia bellissima su cui si potrebbe fare un film, anzi si dovrebbe fare una miniserie) dovevano pur sapere leggere e quindi che lo trovassero da soli nel romanzo.
Faulkner dice, Ray, proprio non si riesce a capire, dacci una mano.
Chandler sempre più scocciato dice che ora ci guarda lui.
Passa qualche ora, Chandler richiama Faulkner, che gli chiede se è venuto a capo del mistero.
"Will, ho riletto il libro. Francamente, non lo so".
Intermezzo
Il romanzo ebbe un buon successo, come detto, ma letto ora è tragicamente invecchiato e sembra una collezione di luoghi comuni del genere e dei tipi umani che da sempre lo affollano, il detective, il suo vice, la bella ricca ereditiera con un amante sbagliato e una parentela anche peggiore, la ragazza in fuga dal suo passato di cui tutti si innamorano, la ragazzina che ha tutti i vizi più comuni e alcuni che si è inventata di sana pianta (vedi alla voce Carmen Sternwood), i poliziotti senza scrupoli, i criminali con meno scrupoli e così via.
In estrema sintesi, il protagonista si trova ad indagare su una serie di delitti apparentemente slegati tra loro, che in realtà hanno un fulcro comune, l'intreccio tra una cantante, un vecchio amico d'infanzia e la sua attuale, ricca consorte, insidiati da un misterioso killer e da contrasti familiari con il fratello e la sorella di lei.
Con il marcio di questi tizi, la Danimarca ci campa cent'anni, mentre i personaggi del libro campano decisamente meno, in media, data la frequenza dei decessi.
Arduo trovare un motivo di interesse per leggere il libro, salvo essere specialisti della materia o, come il sottoscritto, almeno appassionati del genere e devoti fanatici del film cui Brackett prestò la sua opera.
A comprova, in un romanzo zeppo di one-liners a là Chandler, non ho praticamente sottolineato una riga.
October 14, 2017
From 1944! Written by a notable female pulp writer! A good mystery plot! I don't know why I didn't like it. I just didn't, and it isn't explainable. And, to show it is not just my timing here, I tried to read this twice before and didn't want to, then basically forced myself this time.
August 25, 2024
No Good from a Corpse was the first novel by Leigh Brackett (1915-78), a hardboiled (almost impervious), L.A. detective story, though she was better known for her Fantasy writings and her screenplays (including The Big Sleep (1946), which she wrote with William Faulkner). She wrote a few other crime novels, but Science Fiction and Fantasy was her métier. No Good from a Corpse started slow as some parts were unexplained, but gradually came together and was properly gripping. Ed Clive, our tough-guy sleuth gets beat up as much as any masochistic detective, but doles out thumpings as well (sometimes with little provocation). Of course he recovers like Wolverine. This is the hardest of hardboiled noir, more noirish and hardboiled than Chandler though clearly from the same school -- although our hero is no knight climbing into stained glass windows. The novel has all the requisite ingredients: ex-cons, strippers, hookers, canaries, tough cops, femmes fatales, night clubs, store fronts, and street lamps. Clive could've been a series detective, but I don't know much more his ethics could fall as the bodies started piling up. If a Chandler fix is needed this might do as well as early Ross Macdonald. My copy, apparently created by optical scanner, had so many typos (from the first line) it was hard to figure out some sentences. Try to find a pre-print-on-demand edition. [3½★]
August 27, 2011
There is a thread which ties Raymond Chandler, Howard Hawks, William Faulkner and George Lucas together and that is the unusual talent of Leigh Brackett. Brackett, whose first novel No Good From a Corpse, caught the attention of Hawks, was brought in to "improve" the screenplay Faulkner was struggling with: Chandler's The Big Sleep -- among the iconic films of film noir ... and the film which cemented the reputation of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall as Hollywood's most sizzling couple. Brackett had already written science fiction stories and wrote extensively in the field throughout her life, her last project being the original draft of "The Empire Strikes Back" in the Star Wars series.
Ed Clive is a private detective in Los Angeles with a young sidekick name Jonathan Ladd Jones. Clive has a friendly stalemate sort of relationship with Homicide Division's Detective Lieutenant Jordan Gaines. When Clive and his buddy Mick Hammond turn up in the apartment of murdered nightclub singer Laurel Dane, Hammond is tossed into jail; Clive sets out to clear his friend's, and his own, name. Hammond's wife, Jane Alcott, is loaded and holds the key to the family fortune -- leaving siblings Richard and Vivien fuming (and drinking). Enter an ex-con with an alibi, some no goods from the club, and an assortment of noirish backdrops and Chandleresque dialogue ... the often brutal encounters between characters keeps the pulse thumping and the plot twisting, twisting, twisting ... who did it and did he or she do all of it?
It's not clear to me why this novel, first published in 1944, is in the public domain but what a treat it is. You can practically feel the fog roll in, smell the wet asphalt and ... what perfume was that dame wearing? The plot could have been a little less convoluted but that, too, is part of the charm. What a pity Ms Brackett wrote so little in this genre after what has to be considered a first rate debut.
Available free in multiple ebook formats at Munsey's.
Ed Clive is a private detective in Los Angeles with a young sidekick name Jonathan Ladd Jones. Clive has a friendly stalemate sort of relationship with Homicide Division's Detective Lieutenant Jordan Gaines. When Clive and his buddy Mick Hammond turn up in the apartment of murdered nightclub singer Laurel Dane, Hammond is tossed into jail; Clive sets out to clear his friend's, and his own, name. Hammond's wife, Jane Alcott, is loaded and holds the key to the family fortune -- leaving siblings Richard and Vivien fuming (and drinking). Enter an ex-con with an alibi, some no goods from the club, and an assortment of noirish backdrops and Chandleresque dialogue ... the often brutal encounters between characters keeps the pulse thumping and the plot twisting, twisting, twisting ... who did it and did he or she do all of it?
It's not clear to me why this novel, first published in 1944, is in the public domain but what a treat it is. You can practically feel the fog roll in, smell the wet asphalt and ... what perfume was that dame wearing? The plot could have been a little less convoluted but that, too, is part of the charm. What a pity Ms Brackett wrote so little in this genre after what has to be considered a first rate debut.
Available free in multiple ebook formats at Munsey's.
January 15, 2015
The book that got Brackett the job of working on Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep.
I've been a fan since childhood of Brackett's science fiction novel The Long Tomorrow, less so of her science fantasies, but this is the first time I've encountered her hardboiled work. Much of this novel is very fine indeed; the reason it gets four (well, 3.5 really) rather than five stars from me is that in a couple of chapters I was rolling my eyes in embarrassment at the ill conceived attempts at humor, which destroyed the tenor of the novel as a whole.
Los Angeles PI Ed Clive is in love with chanteuse Laurel Dane and she with him; both know it'd be madness to enter any kind of a romantic relationship, though, because they both have rotten track records. When Laurel is murdered there are two obvious suspects, Ed himself and Ed's childhood best friend and then, because of a dame, worst enemy Mick Hammond. The cops throw Mick into the slammer and so, mostly because of Mick's heiress wife Jane, Ed takes up the cudgels on his behalf. And "cudgels" is an apt word, because I've rarely come across a novel in which people belt each other around so much. At one stage Ed is beaten near to death by Laurel's ex-husband and Laurel's ex-husband's ex-cellmate (I trust you're following this) but of course, after a mere day or two in the hospital, is up again and raring to go -- with the aid of Jane's shrewish but devilish attractive and openly available sister Vivien . . .
There are more murders, and Ed adds a few corpses of his own creation -- one of these is a murder, too, since the killing's not in self-defense, but the text glosses over this point. The final denouement is a good one, in that it's both unexpected and yet perfectly appropriate.
The novel's well worth your time, especially as a window onto what Brackett's writing career might have been like had she not chosen to focus instead on science fantasy and screenwriting. The genre of hardboiled fiction was, I think, significantly the poorer for that departure.
I've been a fan since childhood of Brackett's science fiction novel The Long Tomorrow, less so of her science fantasies, but this is the first time I've encountered her hardboiled work. Much of this novel is very fine indeed; the reason it gets four (well, 3.5 really) rather than five stars from me is that in a couple of chapters I was rolling my eyes in embarrassment at the ill conceived attempts at humor, which destroyed the tenor of the novel as a whole.
Los Angeles PI Ed Clive is in love with chanteuse Laurel Dane and she with him; both know it'd be madness to enter any kind of a romantic relationship, though, because they both have rotten track records. When Laurel is murdered there are two obvious suspects, Ed himself and Ed's childhood best friend and then, because of a dame, worst enemy Mick Hammond. The cops throw Mick into the slammer and so, mostly because of Mick's heiress wife Jane, Ed takes up the cudgels on his behalf. And "cudgels" is an apt word, because I've rarely come across a novel in which people belt each other around so much. At one stage Ed is beaten near to death by Laurel's ex-husband and Laurel's ex-husband's ex-cellmate (I trust you're following this) but of course, after a mere day or two in the hospital, is up again and raring to go -- with the aid of Jane's shrewish but devilish attractive and openly available sister Vivien . . .
There are more murders, and Ed adds a few corpses of his own creation -- one of these is a murder, too, since the killing's not in self-defense, but the text glosses over this point. The final denouement is a good one, in that it's both unexpected and yet perfectly appropriate.
The novel's well worth your time, especially as a window onto what Brackett's writing career might have been like had she not chosen to focus instead on science fantasy and screenwriting. The genre of hardboiled fiction was, I think, significantly the poorer for that departure.
July 10, 2013
This is the part where I admit to never having read any Raymond Chandler and to having last touched a Hammett book when I was like 12, so I’m going to try real hard to not talk out my ass about hard-boiled and noir. But anyway, this came out in 1944 and is, as far as my limited experience can tell, the legit fuckin article.
And it’s good, too. It’s working within what was clearly already an established style, but it has tons of personality, some real visual and sensory vividness and pop, some great moments of dialogue and, uh, what I can best describe as a lovely and symmetrical shape. (Shape is very important in a mystery; they’re highly dimensional critters and if they’re too far off balance you can feel it.) I think it would hold up to some re-reads, too — it’s a more normal mystery for most of the book, but the ending rewrites much of what came before as a duel of sorts, between two professionals who found themselves in some shitty spots and were both determined to not be the one who comes out on bottom.
Highly recommended, doubly so if you’re already into That Sort Of Thing. And there’s a really interesting discussion to be had about the female characters in it, which we probably can’t have until more of my friends read it. Meet me in spoilertown someday and let’s talk about Vivien and Laurel.
I picked this up at the library after writing up that review of Brackett’s Empire draft, because it reminded me of how intrigued I was about her oddball career. (This was the book that got her that job on the film of The Big Sleep, if you’re following along at home.) While “Star Wars Sequel” was more interesting than it was enjoyable on its own merits, this was legitimately good.
And it’s good, too. It’s working within what was clearly already an established style, but it has tons of personality, some real visual and sensory vividness and pop, some great moments of dialogue and, uh, what I can best describe as a lovely and symmetrical shape. (Shape is very important in a mystery; they’re highly dimensional critters and if they’re too far off balance you can feel it.) I think it would hold up to some re-reads, too — it’s a more normal mystery for most of the book, but the ending rewrites much of what came before as a duel of sorts, between two professionals who found themselves in some shitty spots and were both determined to not be the one who comes out on bottom.
Highly recommended, doubly so if you’re already into That Sort Of Thing. And there’s a really interesting discussion to be had about the female characters in it, which we probably can’t have until more of my friends read it. Meet me in spoilertown someday and let’s talk about Vivien and Laurel.
I picked this up at the library after writing up that review of Brackett’s Empire draft, because it reminded me of how intrigued I was about her oddball career. (This was the book that got her that job on the film of The Big Sleep, if you’re following along at home.) While “Star Wars Sequel” was more interesting than it was enjoyable on its own merits, this was legitimately good.
October 15, 2018
Fast-paced, riveting, and well written
I imagine most people who read this book are established fans of the hard-boiled genre, and consider Brackett something of a curiosity, given her better-known screenwriting accomplishments. I came to this book as a mystery neophyte, knowing nothing of Brackett, just getting into pulp, and choosing this book as a stepping stone on my way to Hammett and Chandler.
The good part about this is I lack the array of tropes and archetypes that might make it easy for mystery fans to dismiss a book like this.
This was a great read. The writing is brutal and efficient, and the dialogue crackles with tension. The story is tense and commands your attention, although I will bet most readers have the whole thing pieced together before the end.
While the plot fulfills expectations, there were a handful of heartfelt character moments that surprised me. Everyone in the book felt three dimensional, and while there wasn't time to dwell, the characters felt inhabited.
The only flaw I can point to in this book is that the prose occasionally errs on the side of TOO lean. Which is fine by me, better than dripping with gristle, but there were moments where I wasn't sure who was talking, or had trouble following the blocking of the scene. Overall, nothing that prevented me from understanding the story, so it's really a nitpick.
This is everything I want from a book. A good story happening to good characters, told in clever words that suggest far more than they say.
I imagine most people who read this book are established fans of the hard-boiled genre, and consider Brackett something of a curiosity, given her better-known screenwriting accomplishments. I came to this book as a mystery neophyte, knowing nothing of Brackett, just getting into pulp, and choosing this book as a stepping stone on my way to Hammett and Chandler.
The good part about this is I lack the array of tropes and archetypes that might make it easy for mystery fans to dismiss a book like this.
This was a great read. The writing is brutal and efficient, and the dialogue crackles with tension. The story is tense and commands your attention, although I will bet most readers have the whole thing pieced together before the end.
While the plot fulfills expectations, there were a handful of heartfelt character moments that surprised me. Everyone in the book felt three dimensional, and while there wasn't time to dwell, the characters felt inhabited.
The only flaw I can point to in this book is that the prose occasionally errs on the side of TOO lean. Which is fine by me, better than dripping with gristle, but there were moments where I wasn't sure who was talking, or had trouble following the blocking of the scene. Overall, nothing that prevented me from understanding the story, so it's really a nitpick.
This is everything I want from a book. A good story happening to good characters, told in clever words that suggest far more than they say.
May 19, 2011
Very intense noir here! There's detectives, hookers, nightclub singers, estranged boyhood friends and wealthy families with jealous siblings. The hero gets clocked so many times I started to get sympathy headaches. And most interestingly there's a pair of ex-cellmates that feel so much like a couple that I mistakenly actually thought they were identified as lovers before I realized we were talking about the nightclub singer.
Anyway, very fun mystery that delivers exactly what the title would imply!
Anyway, very fun mystery that delivers exactly what the title would imply!
July 20, 2019
Great classic noir fiction. Duel at the end when all is explained in detail has a minimum of violence but maximum of drama and is as vicious as duel between black and white cowboy or Jedi and Sith master. Recommended read for any fan of hard boiled crime fiction.
February 25, 2025
Good story that deserved better
Detective story, murder mystery; alternate universe, fantasy, advanced technology
Two stories here. The first is the short novel, No Good From a Corpse. The first few pages, the MC almost seemed insane, shifting from one emotion to another, but in retrospect, it was mentioned he was exhausted when he returned to his home city of LA, and exhaustion does strange things to one's thought processes. He was hard-bitten as was expected of private detectives in the genre, and until the end, the villains were a step ahead.
The second story, a space fantasy stand-alone story is a melancholy tale.
There were a few times where I had to look up slang phrases in the detective story. A dimout, which I had never heard about before, is a zone where night light is much reduced or absent, and was a facet of wartime America during WW2 around important buildings and military installations. A Sloppy Joe today has an entirely different meaning; in the late 1940s and the 1950s, it was either an oversized and loose sweater or overalls the some young women liked to wear.
After the first body, more dead bodies begin to accrue, and our MC takes several beatings, including too many head blows that in modern life would be career enders. But, that was the hardboiled genre at the time.
The press that published this ebook says they strive to bring back old stories of yesteryear, and I applaud that goal. Trouble is, they do it on the cheap. The text is obviously scanned, and no effort is made to clean up mistakes or misinterpretations of the software. And that's sad, because making those corrections found from simply reading the text would make a huge difference in reader enjoyment. That some of the links to other published works result in 404 errors is sad but unsurprising. People want quality in their books, and are willing to ignore a handful of mistakes from indie writers. Brackett was a writer in command of the language. The edition has a lot of typos, absent punctuation or inserted in the wrong place. The story was readable, but at times I realized the comma should not have been there. Random double quote marks and full stops were also an issue. As I said, paying someone with at least a decent understanding of English to note errors to fix before publishing would have been greatly appreciated.
I love Leigh's stories. She had an amazing ability to quickly hook the reader and draw them in. This was her only foray into detective fiction, and she found more reception for her science fantasy tales and her screenwriting. The films she worked are replete with snappy dialog, and the women aren't ornaments but are verbal warriors in their own right. Watch The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo, and Rio Lobo. Character in these stories isn't neglected, but adds to the plot. She did the first draft to the second Star Wars movie, and the improvement to the dialogue was noticeable. It's telling too, that Lucas has kept her first draft and refused to release it, and for decades insisted nothing of her writing survived the revisions. If that was the case, why hide the draft? Let others judge for themselves? Yeah, I'm not buying that tale, George.
This is for those who love Leigh Brackett, and despite the numerous punctuation and misspelled words, there are two good stories here. It's just the media that's poorly put together. Good, with reservations.
I had postponed reading this ebook for a few years, because I wanted there to be one last bit of Leigh's writing waiting to be read and enjoyed.
Detective story, murder mystery; alternate universe, fantasy, advanced technology
Two stories here. The first is the short novel, No Good From a Corpse. The first few pages, the MC almost seemed insane, shifting from one emotion to another, but in retrospect, it was mentioned he was exhausted when he returned to his home city of LA, and exhaustion does strange things to one's thought processes. He was hard-bitten as was expected of private detectives in the genre, and until the end, the villains were a step ahead.
The second story, a space fantasy stand-alone story is a melancholy tale.
There were a few times where I had to look up slang phrases in the detective story. A dimout, which I had never heard about before, is a zone where night light is much reduced or absent, and was a facet of wartime America during WW2 around important buildings and military installations. A Sloppy Joe today has an entirely different meaning; in the late 1940s and the 1950s, it was either an oversized and loose sweater or overalls the some young women liked to wear.
After the first body, more dead bodies begin to accrue, and our MC takes several beatings, including too many head blows that in modern life would be career enders. But, that was the hardboiled genre at the time.
The press that published this ebook says they strive to bring back old stories of yesteryear, and I applaud that goal. Trouble is, they do it on the cheap. The text is obviously scanned, and no effort is made to clean up mistakes or misinterpretations of the software. And that's sad, because making those corrections found from simply reading the text would make a huge difference in reader enjoyment. That some of the links to other published works result in 404 errors is sad but unsurprising. People want quality in their books, and are willing to ignore a handful of mistakes from indie writers. Brackett was a writer in command of the language. The edition has a lot of typos, absent punctuation or inserted in the wrong place. The story was readable, but at times I realized the comma should not have been there. Random double quote marks and full stops were also an issue. As I said, paying someone with at least a decent understanding of English to note errors to fix before publishing would have been greatly appreciated.
I love Leigh's stories. She had an amazing ability to quickly hook the reader and draw them in. This was her only foray into detective fiction, and she found more reception for her science fantasy tales and her screenwriting. The films she worked are replete with snappy dialog, and the women aren't ornaments but are verbal warriors in their own right. Watch The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo, and Rio Lobo. Character in these stories isn't neglected, but adds to the plot. She did the first draft to the second Star Wars movie, and the improvement to the dialogue was noticeable. It's telling too, that Lucas has kept her first draft and refused to release it, and for decades insisted nothing of her writing survived the revisions. If that was the case, why hide the draft? Let others judge for themselves? Yeah, I'm not buying that tale, George.
This is for those who love Leigh Brackett, and despite the numerous punctuation and misspelled words, there are two good stories here. It's just the media that's poorly put together. Good, with reservations.
I had postponed reading this ebook for a few years, because I wanted there to be one last bit of Leigh's writing waiting to be read and enjoyed.
April 18, 2020
Hardboiled noir with a punch. Actually a lot of punches. Protagonist Ed Clive gets hit a lot, and he feels every blow. No Superman here.
Clive returns from cracking a case to discover Laurel — a woman he loves but knows is too promiscuous for him — wants Ed to help his former best friend (they split up over another woman) investigate whose sending poison-pen letters to his live. At Laurel's apartment, someone clubs Ed unconscious and beats Laurel to death. Was it Ed's buddy? A member of his extremely dysfunctional family? Or someone else, lurking in the shadows, unseen?
A good mystery (I guessed part of the solution, not all) that got Brackett her gig cowriting the script for The Big Sleep. This reminds of both The Big Sleep and Woolrich's Phantom Lady, but women get slapped around too much for me to give it five stars.
Clive returns from cracking a case to discover Laurel — a woman he loves but knows is too promiscuous for him — wants Ed to help his former best friend (they split up over another woman) investigate whose sending poison-pen letters to his live. At Laurel's apartment, someone clubs Ed unconscious and beats Laurel to death. Was it Ed's buddy? A member of his extremely dysfunctional family? Or someone else, lurking in the shadows, unseen?
A good mystery (I guessed part of the solution, not all) that got Brackett her gig cowriting the script for The Big Sleep. This reminds of both The Big Sleep and Woolrich's Phantom Lady, but women get slapped around too much for me to give it five stars.
April 25, 2022
Legendary SciFi writer Leigh Brackett (who won a posthumous award for the screenplay to Empire Strikes Back), began her career as a writer trying to reach the pages of Black Mask. She was never successful in this, but her Chandler-influenced novel No Good From a Corpse was so impressive in its hard-boiled dialogue that Howard Hawks insisted its author, unseen, be brought in to work on the screenplay adaption of The Big Sleep (together with a fella by the name of Faulkner.) Though Hawks was stunned to discover that Leigh was a woman, she got the job, and worked on what was probably the best film adaptation of a Chandler novel.
September 19, 2020
Hard-Boiled writing at it's finest, from a popular sci-fi writer! Her start as a screenwriter (because of this book) , I liked this quote - "Hollywood director Howard Hawks was so impressed by her novel No Good from a Corpse that he had his secretary call in "this guy Brackett" to help William Faulkner write the script for The Big Sleep (1946)" Yep, this writing is right up there with her male counter parts back then.
May 27, 2022
A Solid Hardboiled Detective Story
I knew Leigh Brackett's work as a screenwriter and wanted to check out her prose fiction. This is an action-packed detective tale that has the requisite beatings, attempted (and sometimes successful) murders, a tough guy protagonist with a smart mouth, and a plot with plenty of twists, turns and red herrings. It's no classic, but it's entertaining. And if you like your endings dark and cyclical, this fits the bill.
I knew Leigh Brackett's work as a screenwriter and wanted to check out her prose fiction. This is an action-packed detective tale that has the requisite beatings, attempted (and sometimes successful) murders, a tough guy protagonist with a smart mouth, and a plot with plenty of twists, turns and red herrings. It's no classic, but it's entertaining. And if you like your endings dark and cyclical, this fits the bill.
May 5, 2019
A noire detective story with hot and dangerous dames, bloody action and a murder mystery. I think Brackett had a lot fun playing with these cliches, and being the master story teller she is, this makes a fun and exciting read.
October 3, 2022
Man, Leigh Brackett is just a joy to read. This is friggin hard boiled it goes well on an English muffin. At times it feels like parody it's so ridiculously noir. Still, utterly enjoyable. I got a bit mixed up with all the names and all the surrounding era-talk, but still, a good yarn.
February 17, 2023
Edmond Clive is private investigator. Upon returning from a trip he gets involved with a case involving a very powerful family. A young woman is killed and their list of suspects is long. This is a great noir novel. There are some surprises.
January 1, 2024
I picked this up purely on the strength of Brackett's screenwriting credit on The Big Sleep, and while it's not bad, per se, it's definitely not Chandler. Stuffed full of quips and clichés in equal measure, but still a neat little hardboiled tale.
July 4, 2020
Can’t remember many details from this book, which should tell you everything you need to know why I only give it two stars.
January 8, 2022
Damn good detective novel.
May 1, 2015
As detective Ed Clive returns home from one job, only to be thrust into the middle of another. One of his childhood friends turned worst enemies, Mick Hammond, is having marital troubles, as Mick and his heiress wife Jane have received threatening letters. To make things worse, Laurel Dane is somehow involved—a nightclub singer who’s in love with Ed, and visa-versa, even though they know they’re rotten for each other. When Laurel winds up dead, Ed and Mick are the two prime suspects—while Mick is the one who ends up in the clink, Ed remains under the microscope, the police expecting he had a role to play in the murder. To clear his name, and in search of vengeance, he sets out to find Laurel’s killer. On his journey down dark alleys and across L.A’s oil-specked beaches, he’ll run into Jane Hammond’s femme fatale sister, uncover the dark truths of Laurel’s past, and take a helluva beating in the process.
It’s very easy to see why Brackett’s writing impressed Howard Hawks, and why he wanted her to help script a Raymond Chandler novel—Brackett is one of the few authors who can write Chandleresque prose better than Chandler. Perhaps not for the entire length of the novel, but long enough to make it count. The dialogue is some of the sharpest and toughest writing I’ve read all year, with a deft vocabulary and rapier wit. The plotting is as convoluted as Chandler at his best, a crisscrossing maze of turncoats and double-blinds and unexpected murders. The first three chapters exist as a whirl, a kind of organized chaos that isn’t fully explained or comprehensible until the following chapter. Brackett would often nail the noir mood in her science fiction, and such is the case here.
No Good From a Corpse is an excellent novel, and in another world would have gone down as a noir classic… had Brackett not switched focus to her screenplays, perhaps, or if her entire bibliography had been mysteries and not space opera. Instead, it’s a fascinating look at what might have been, had Brackett’s career revolved around writing Chandleresque adventure on Earth and not on Mars. I could come up with some more superlatives to describe it, but I won’t bother; suffice to say that the novel lives up to its reputation, and aside from a few minor flaws it will more than entertain any reader who enjoys a good dose of noir. I highly recommend it to the hardboiled reader, and want to point out that you can download an e-book version free at Munsey’s.
Full review, and other noir book reviews, found here.
It’s very easy to see why Brackett’s writing impressed Howard Hawks, and why he wanted her to help script a Raymond Chandler novel—Brackett is one of the few authors who can write Chandleresque prose better than Chandler. Perhaps not for the entire length of the novel, but long enough to make it count. The dialogue is some of the sharpest and toughest writing I’ve read all year, with a deft vocabulary and rapier wit. The plotting is as convoluted as Chandler at his best, a crisscrossing maze of turncoats and double-blinds and unexpected murders. The first three chapters exist as a whirl, a kind of organized chaos that isn’t fully explained or comprehensible until the following chapter. Brackett would often nail the noir mood in her science fiction, and such is the case here.
No Good From a Corpse is an excellent novel, and in another world would have gone down as a noir classic… had Brackett not switched focus to her screenplays, perhaps, or if her entire bibliography had been mysteries and not space opera. Instead, it’s a fascinating look at what might have been, had Brackett’s career revolved around writing Chandleresque adventure on Earth and not on Mars. I could come up with some more superlatives to describe it, but I won’t bother; suffice to say that the novel lives up to its reputation, and aside from a few minor flaws it will more than entertain any reader who enjoys a good dose of noir. I highly recommend it to the hardboiled reader, and want to point out that you can download an e-book version free at Munsey’s.
Full review, and other noir book reviews, found here.
June 22, 2011
I gave this one four, but it's closer to 3 1/2. Part of that may be increased expectations. Brackett was an incredible screenwriter, a good writer of SF and I'd heard great things about this novel. And to be fair it was good. It's just really not a patch on Hammett or Chandler at their best as I'd heard that it might be. What I ended up with is a good hard-boiled mystery with enough red herrings to keep me guessing and quality dialog.
May 14, 2013
noir che più noir non si può- con un investigatore privato, donne fatali e crudeli, colpi di scena continui e un sacco di botte. svetta los angeles- città viziosa e in continuo movimento. scritto da una donna, negli anni '40. notevole- nel genere.
January 18, 2009
I was expecting better, from what I'd heard about Leigh's style. It was OK, not as fabulous as I'd been lead to believe.
Read
May 5, 2009No Good from a Corpse by Leigh Brackett (1999)
January 4, 2014
Good read in the Chandler tradition.
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