My Kind of Book: “Expectant Nymph”

Expectant Nymph, by “Hank Janson,” aka Stephen D. Frances (Gold Star, 1964). Cover illustration by Robert Maguire.

Amazingly, eight years ago I compiled a good-size post for this page about novels featuring “nymph” in their titles, but I missed including Expectant Nymph. It was one of the later books featuring Chicago-based newspaperman-cum-detective Hank Janson. The Nick Carter & Carter Brown Blog offers the following plot synopsis:

When Hank Jason is given a routine assignment to interview a retired gangster, he doesn’t expect to be de-panted by a mysterious young woman. And neither does he expect to go swimming in the raw with a beautiful international stripper who has been seen au naturel by an estimated 10 million men. But it’s all in a day’s and night’s work to the Chicago Chronicle’s ace reporter.

A curious thing: I have long understood that Stephen D. Frances (1917-1989), an English clerk turned journalist turned prolific author, created the Janson character and wrote the books in this once-popular series that were published between 1946 and 1953, making only occasional additional contributions from then until 1959. After 1953, I was told, others writers—among them D.F. Crawley, Harry Hobson, Victor Norwood, and James Moffatt—had continued Frances’ efforts, also under the Janson pseudonym.

The beautiful Expectant Nymph first saw print in August 1964, well after Frances is said to have retired. Yet all the online sources I find credit him with actually penning the novel. Is this simply a case of laziness, applying Frances’ name to books even after he had nothing to do with them? If anyone reading this can clear up the actual authorship of Expectant Nymph, please drop a note into the Comments section at the bottom of this post.

My Kind of Book: “Assignment—Nuclear Nude”

Assignment—Nuclear Nude, by Edward S. Aarons (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1968). This was the 27th entry in Aarons’ popular paperback series about fictional CIA agent Sam Durell. The cover illustration is by Robert McGinnis, of course.

That same McGinnis artwork was used on the front of a 1969 German release of The Campus Murders, one of three “Troubleshooter” thrillers credited​ to Ellery Queen but actually written by Gil Brewer.

READ MORE: “Paperback Warrior Primer—Edward S. Aarons.”

My Kind of Book: “Dragon Hunt”

Dragon Hunt, by Dave J. Garrity (Signet, 1967). “[D]espite much cover-blurb ballyhoo,” writes Joe Kenney in his blog, Glorious Trash, this “actually turned out to be the sole appearance of private detective Peter Braid. Very, very much in the [Mickey] Spillane mold, Dragon Hunt is such a Mike Hammer riff that it not only carries a cover blurb from Spillane himself, but it’s also based on a story Spillane wrote for the short-lived 1954 From the Files of ... Mike Hammer newspaper comic strip.”

Cover art by Ron Lesser.

My Kind of Book: “Dig a Dead Doll”

Dig a Dead Doll, by G.G. Fickling (Pyramid, 1960). This happens to be the seventh novel starring Honey West, “the nerviest, curviest P.I. in Los Angeles—or anywhere else for that matter,” who was created in the 1950s by the husband-and-wife writing team of Gloria and Forrest E. Fickling under their “G.G. Fickling” pseudonym. Cover art by Robert Maguire.

My Kind of Book: “Alias James Bond”

Alias James Bond—The Life of Ian Fleming, by James Pearson (Bantam, 1967). Only the 1967 American version of this book bore that title; the original, 1966 edition was called just The Life of Ian Fleming. According to Wikipedia, author Pearson was Fleming’s assistant at the London Sunday Times when he penned this biography. It adds: “Pearson later wrote the official, fictional-biography James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007 in 1973. The Life of Ian Fleming was one of the first biographies of Ian Fleming and is considered a collectible book by many James Bond fans, since Pearson would become the third, official James Bond author. … In 1989 the biography was turned into a movie, Goldeneye.” Cover art by James Bama.