The Bedroom Route by Sheldon Lord (Lawrence Block/Donald Westlake?), Beacon, 1963

The Sheldon Lords are a mixed bag, depending on who penned them  — Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Milo Perichitich, or Hal Dresner.

This one is penned by Block, with perhaps some help by Westlake; I detect two styles from chapter to chapter.  It’s an unbanite story of Madison Avenue ad account junior exec, Mike Hart, and his wife Cheryl.  Cheryl, it seems has become frigid, much to the dismay of her hubby Mike.  But no fear, there are other women, lots of them: his secretary and the lover of one of his rivals at the ad company, sleeping with the woman as an act of revenge and one-upmanship.

Cheryl learns why she cannot enjoy sex with men anymore, when she is seduced by another woman and enters the world of the third sex on twilight street.

Unfortunately, this one is not as good as the Sheldon Lords like the excellent Candy and April North. It’s slow-moving and droll much like Orrie Hitt’s droll Mad Ad novel, Tell Them Anything. This could have been an assignment from Beacon: “Give us a Madison Avenue sex book,” since Beacon published a number of them set in ad world.

It’s okay, the writing is smooth, but it’s just that: okay. There are better Sheldon Lords out there…