Hell Bait

by Harry Whittington, Curt Colman (Psued.)

Shame maze . . . women clung to him with sickly and sinful sweetness, but Steve Burnette was determined to find his brother's murderer despite these dreadful obstacles. He couldn't be bought -t body or soul; and that mean he had to be killed, body and soul . . . Sin puzzle!

190 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 1966

About the author

He also wrote under the names Ashley Carter, Harriet Kathryn Myers, and Blaine Stevens, Curt Colman, John Dexter, Tabor Evans, Whit Harrison, Kel Holland, Suzanne Stephens, Clay Stuart, Hondo Wells, Harry White, Hallam Whitney, Henri Whittier, J.X. Williams.

Harry Whittington (February 4, 1915–June 11, 1989) was an American mystery novelist and one of the original founders of the paperback novel. Born in Ocala, Florida, he worked in government jobs before becoming a writer.

His reputation as a prolific writer of pulp fiction novels is supported by his writing of 85 novels in a span of twelve years (as many as seven in a single month) mostly in the crime, suspense, and noir fiction genres. In total, he published over 200 novels. Seven of his writings were produced for the screen, including the television series Lawman. His reputation for being known as 'The King of the Pulps' is shared with author H. Bedford-Jones. Only a handful of Whittington's novels are in print today.
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Reviews

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Harry Whittington's famed "missing 38" sleaze novels published by Corinth (Greenleaf) in the mid-1960s when he was on a one book per month contract. Many of those novels hid a crime/noir story in between the sex scenes, which is the case with Hell Bait. Crime/noir with sex scenes. Yes, we have plenty of that now. But one of the reasons the missing 38 are famous is that you couldn't do that back then (unless you went the sleaze route). Gold Medal paperback with explicit sex scenes? No way. Now imagine one of Whittington's Gold Medal paperbacks with those sex scenes. What would you have? Something just like Hell Bait. The crime/noir plot is that Steve Burnette is trying to find out who murdered his brother. However, he's too busy getting laid to do much detective work. I would have liked more investigating, so that's the negative. Loved all the gritty psychological trappings: the biting introspection, the psychological warfare between characters. A brutally raw and honest layer that Gold Medal wouldn't have touched. Hard to find and expensive, but worth it for collectors.