In my previous post, I was asking about two crime-cum-sex paperbacks that were published in Finland as by Ralph Hayes, but didn't actually seem to be Hayes's work. At least he himself denied that, and as I said in the post, I couldn't locate the possible original books via WorldCat, Abebooks or other sites.
Now here's another one. It's also situated in the sub-genre of crime novels that have lots of explicit sex in them, and it's a pretty good one at that. I can't find anything about the book or the author, and it has come to me that maybe the Finnish publisher came up with non-existent titles so as not to have to pay the author or the original publisher for the work.
The book in question is by one Jason Brown and the Finnish edition gives the original title as "Little Girl Gone" (the Finnish title Reittä pitkin kuolemaan is impossible to translate back to English). Now, that does sound like a legitimate sleazy crime novel, but I can't find anything to match the time frame (it was published in Finland in 1978) or the description. Jason Brown doesn't seem to have published anything in English language.
The book takes place somewhere in the South, and in it one Berk Marshall, a young guy in his twenties or thirties, goes back home to find out his grandpa is dead, seemingly by accident, but Berk can't fathom how his grandpa could've shot himself, since he was always so careful with guns. Berk finds out someone's been selling grandpa's forest behind his back all the time. The sex scenes involve Berk's two teenage crushes Sammy and Mary Ellen, between whom he really can't choose. There is also a scene with the forest caretaker's wife that the caretaker ushers on to be able to snatch photos of his wife and Berk making it out together so he can file for divorce. In the end, Berk gathers all the suspects together to reveal the guilty one.
So Little Girl Gone, whoever wrote it, is a legitimate crime novel, with some gun action, fist fights and car chases, with a healthy dose of X-rated sex thrown in. Who wrote it, who published it and when did this happen? Inquiring minds need to know!
Mind you, this is not the only crime novel I've found in the midst of the American sex paperbacks I've been going through lately. There's also Alexander Keith's The Love Gun (published possibly by Bee-Line Books in the early 1970's) that features a murder of a hunting party's member and even some police work. The book takes place in Canada, and Alexander Keith was the name of a famous Canadian politician and businessman, so I presume the writer is actually Canadian, hiding behind a pseudonym which means something only to other Canadians. The book's not bad, though reading these in a row makes it difficult to judge. (I couldn't find exact publishing date for this, but I was able to buy it on Kindle, and the AdultBookCovers site has two other smut titles by Alexander Keith, and they were published by Bee-Line Books, so I presume it's a real book!)
