A quick and goofy read, one of George H. Smith’s many southern/swamp girl type books he did for Novel Books. Certanly no serious work, the title page claims Smith is the author of The Farmer’s Daughter.
The farmer is Berle Gates, and he has a mail order bride from Germany, a bug healthy blonde gal that everyone is the town lusts for, even the Sheriff.
An okay read.
In Paperback Parade #32, there is a letter from George H. Smith, who wrote for Cornith as Don Bellmore and elsewhere as Jan Hudson, and also wrote some science-fiction, that the George H. Smith who published “country and swamp girl books” was a different GHS. This explains for the difference in styles.
Swamp Lust tells the story of Chad Cain (Cain?!), a simple southern fellow who one day catches his wife, Claudette, in the arms of a sleazy Frenchman, Henri. In an O.J. Simpson-esque rage, he kills them both and tosses their bodies into the marshy swamp of the backwoods.
The novel deals with Chad deflecting any suspicion of the murders — Henri’s brother comes looking around, wanting revenge, but had kills him too. And his new lover, Maria, thinks something is — fishy.
And Chad seems to be losing his mind, or is haunting — believing that his dead wife’s decayed body is wandering the swamplands, just to torment.
A fast and cheesy book, nothing great, decent entertainment with a great cover.
Jan Hudson was one of George H. Smith’s nom de plumes (his middle name Hudson) that he did a few books under, most notably the highly collectible Those Sexy Suacer People from Greenleaf Classics.
Smith also wrote many Nightstands as Don Bellmore, and some scince fiction titles. His stuff tends to be comic, playful, and whacky, such as this one.
This is Boudoir #103. The first, #101, was The Wife Traders by Loren Beauchamp, reviewed here in July. Boudoir was a short-lived imprint of Imperial Publishing aka American Art Enterprises, a shady Los Angeles outfit.
Girls Afire opens with protagonist Jeremy Fargo at a Venice Beach party that has been going on for three days. People are drunk, high, having sex, reading poetry aloud — they’re all beatniks too, proto-hippies in L.A., and they see Jeremy as a “sqaure” but he’s there.
Jeremy is a frustrated novelist, once a Madison Avenue commercial artist, following his dream to be a, um, writer of great Ameican literature. His first novel was published but the critics found it bleak and sales weren’t good, so his publisher has rejected his second novel and Jeremy doesn’t know what to do — maybe write a more commercial, upbeat novel?
He has left rainy San Francisco and move to sunny Los Angeles to write. He has rented a room out in a house. The landlady, a good looking woman whose husband is often away, suggests he might pay his rent in trade — that is, sex. He thinks it might work.
At the party, he meets a girl named Deirdre and takes her home. Deidre thinks he may be The One, even if he is a sqaure, but he is a writer. She’s going with a friend of his but he convinces the friend to dump her, that she’s no good; his friend does, leaving a clear path for him.
Then he meets her sister, Jean, and falls in love with her. As much as Jean tries to resist, she succumbs to Jeremy, much too Deirdre’s hurt and anger.
Giving in to his landlady’s reqest of sex for rent, the two are at it when her husband walks in and catches them — he wants to kill Jeremy, and so does Jeremy’s friend when the guy learns Jeremy took Deirdre as a lover, and now Deirdre wants to kill him for taking her sister.
So he has three people after his hide…
It’s funny and short. It’s okay. I’m not much into comic sleazecore. I prefer the serious and dark stuff.
I don’t think this Bellmore was written by George H. Smith, who had the Bellmore pen name, as well as Jan Hudson (and wrote some interesting SF books under his own name).
This is the first Nightstand/Midnight/Cornith I was unable to finish. I got about 60 pages in and tossed it aside it was that bad.
The narrator is a talent agent and a former client, a washed up but rich actress, offers to pay him good money to take her on as a client and re-vitalize her dead career.
Bad dialogue, bad writing…bad book.
Those Sexy Vintage Sleaze Books 