Friday, 27 January 2023

All The Way Down - Vincent Riccio and Bill Slocum

THE VIOLENT UNDERWORLD OF STREET GANGS


Publisher: Ballantine Books
Number: F 712
Publishing Year: 1962
Printing: First
Cover Price: 50c
Cover Artist: 

ALL THE WAY DOWN

is the story of five years spent in the vicious, appalling underworld of the juvenile street gangs. Vincent Riccio, ex-boxer with an M.A. degree from Columbia, was a street worker with the New York City Youth Board. The life he describes makes "West Side Story" sound like a kindergarten fairy tale.

This is the brutal, unadorned truth about a world where rival gangs fight "wars" with tire-chains, knives and guns; where the teen-age date is replaced by mass rape in the back seat of a stolen car; where murder is a status symbol and kids of 14 are hopelessly hooked on dope.

"Juvenile delinquency is going to be unbeatable in ten years," the Attorney General of the United States said recently. Vincent Riccio writes bitterly: "I hope it's not unbeatable now."

Wednesday, 25 January 2023

Blood On My Shadow - A. J. Merak

The Pick-up order was out: Get Johnny Merak, dead or alive . . . .


Publisher: Badger Books 
Number: Mystery Series No. 3
Publishing Year: 1956
Printing: First
Cover Price: 2'-
Cover Artist: Ray Theobald

Introducing

Blood on My Shoulder

by

A. J. MERAK

Johnny Merak was determined to get Maxie Temple, who'd framed him for a three-year-stretch in San Quentin. But the Big Men of the Los Angeles Underworld wanted both Temple and Johnny Merak and decided that by killing Temple they could do both with the same shot.

But Merak wasn't having any of the deal and when Dawn Grahame showed up, he was more than ready to take on the whole of the Organisation. Bit first he had to meet the suspects. the unknown hoodlum who knew too much. Madden who might have been the killer and his girl-friend who had to be fed with heroin to keep her from talking to the wrong people.

Finally there were Clancy Snow and Dutch McKnight, the bosses of the Underworld who sat like black spiders in the web of treachery and vice that made up the Dark Side of Los Angeles.

And at the end of the play, when the chips were down and all the cards on the table. Death stepped in to reap the winnings.

Monday, 23 January 2023

Pablo's Mountain - Albert Johnston

 A BOY EXPLODES INTO MANHOOD IN THIS CLASSIC OF "DEPRAVITY VIEWED THROUGH THE EYES OF INNOCENCE"



Publisher: Award Books
Number: A164 X K
Publishing Year: 1966 (January)
Printing: First
Cover Price:
Cover Artist:

"Moving . . . Disturbing"
-N.Y. Times

You have just come to New York City looking for a home, a job, and (yes, Miguel would soon admit this to himself) love.

But in El Barrio, the heart of this city, you find only corruption: prostitutes for neighbors, hoodlums for the children to play with. In El Barrio you live with fear by day and violence by night.

This is the background for the book that shocked New Yorkers, and readers across the nation, when it became the fiction "sleeper" of the year. This is story behind New York City's explosive headlines.

"MR. JOHNSTON IS TO BE CONGRATULATED"
-San Francisco Chronicle

Saturday, 21 January 2023

Juvenile Hoods - Joseph Shallit

When marijuana means murder!


Publisher: Avon Books
Number: T-170
Publishing Year: 1959
Printing: First
Cover Price: 35c
Cover Artist:

Originally published as 'Kiss The Killer'

a rotten racket

narcotics

Some punk is selling marijuana to teen-agers. A heel who ought to be killed.

Someone is - and Dan Morrison is right in the middle of it because . . .

he runs the athletic center where the teen-age addicts hang out

he gets involved with a trio of gals who show him you can't mix murder with a kiss - unless it's a kiss of death.

Thursday, 19 January 2023

Scum - Roy Minton

  A NOVEL BASED ON THE TV PLAY BANNED BY THE BBC


Publisher: Arrow Books
Number: 0099192705
Publishing Year: 1979
Printing: First
Cover Price:
Cover Artist:

BANNED

Rox Minton's controversial television play SCUM was commissioned by the BBC, filmed, advertised, then suddenly withdrawn a short time before it was due to be screened.

The decision to veto caused violent reactions - from those who supported the censorship as well as those who felt outraged by the Establishment's ban.

Now Roy Minton has re-written the plays as a novel: and, for the first time, the public has the chance to make up its own mind.

It is an uncompromising, often shocking and outspoken comment on the bleak, brutal world of a Borstal: a powerful story that tells the truth about the boys labelled 'Scum' - and the men they call 'Screws'!

A Major film of SCUM is planned for the near future.

Tuesday, 17 January 2023

D for Delinquent - Bud Clifton

 SHE WAS STRICTLY FOR THE BOYS


Publisher: Ace Books
Number: D-270
Publishing Year: 1958
Printing: First
Cover Price: 35c
Cover Artist:

THE JAIL-BAIT AGE

What with petty thievery and wild marijuana parties, there had been enough problems for the faculty at Seacliff High before the girl named Gloria arrived. She was sixteen, she was sexy, and she spelled trouble.

For Gloria was a teen-ager with an adult past. The things that were still considered daring to the local gangs and that shocked teachers in Seacliff were kid stuff this brassy little teaser.

So when Gloria displayed her special talents around the school and after hours, it started a new kind of an extra-curricular rumble that grew into a volcanic eruption which overran Seacliff.

Sunday, 15 January 2023

Tuck's Girl - Marcel Wallenstein

THE VIOLENT STORY OF A REFORMATORY GIRL AND HER HOPELESS PASSION FOR A HARDENED YOUNG CRIMINAL


Publisher: Ace Books
Number: H 319
Publishing Year: 1960
Printing: First
Cover Price: 2/6
Cover Artist:

TUCK
A savage crook in jail for robbery with murder

HIS GIRL
Anna, a reformatory girl, runaway from bad home, dominated by her fierce longing for a love which is now only a bitter memory

THE STORY
Anna is told that two hundred dollars will ensure Tuck's parole. She commits murder to get it, then takes to the road with the half-breed Indian who has helped with the crime, and is timidly in love with her. She has no regard for the half-breed, but uses him cruelly to protect herself, following a path of deception and cunning until her final disillusionment.

Tuck's Girl is a remarkable story of the lengths to which a woman will go when a rememembered love is all that she lives for