1975 BOOKS: Sex, Race & Crime

I know, I know. I'm a day late (and a dollar short as my mother would say. These days I'm several dollars short). But I have to get these written up and knocked off, so to speak. I enjoyed them more than the other 1975 book, each for different reasons. And they were much more exemplary of the year 1975 than that book I refuse to name by that American woman. So very quickly here are the highlights of the two other books I read for the Crimes of the Century meme last month when 1975 was the year of books being saluted and celebrated.

The Topless Tulip Caper by Lawrence Block

This is the last book about Chip Harrison, ostensibly also written by him as they were originally published under his name. But he's just another of Block's alter egos working double time on the wiseguy humor and the sex and crime books he wrote for Gold Medal back in the days of paperback originals. It's also the second detective novel featuring the sleuthing team of Leo Haig and Chip who, as all mystery lovers in the know should know, are knock-offs of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. Oops. Should I say this is a homage? No way. Block would call that pompous.

As the title implies there's a strip club involved and a stripper is the first victim. Well, really the 124th victim. "124 murder victims?" I hear you cry. "That's some serial killer at work!" Oh calm down. See, this is also about tropical fish collecting and the lost art of breeding fish in an aquarium. (Does anyone still have home aquariums?) As Wolfe has his obsession with caring for and hybridizing various orchid species so Leo Haig has his tropical fish. And the client in this case has hired Haig to find out who slaughtered her prize collection of Scatophagus tetracanthus (You better believe I looked that one up!) They account for the first one hundred and twenty-three victims of the book. Thankfully, we are spared this aquatic carnage as they are mass murdered by poisoned fish food well before the book even begins. Chip knows that Leo is the man for the job as does Thelma Wolinski, aka Tulip Willing, as she is known when she dances in her undies for the salivating male audience at the Treasure Chest strip club. Thelma, you see, is the leading authority on the "Scatty" and has written a couple of articles on how to successfully breed the species for a few ichthyological trade journals. Remarkably, the bizarre death of her stripper colleague Cherry (curare poisoning delivered mysteriously to her ...uh... left breast) is tied to the liquidation of Thelma's fish.

Leo Haig delivers a rousing final chapter lecture just as all great detectives of the Golden Age should do with all the suspects present in his office. Chip has several sexual escapades with the attractive women in the cast all done tongue in cheek and with some meta-fiction jokes at the expense of the people who were Block's editors at Gold Medal. This is a fun and frothy example of a well done off-the-wall detective novel that hits all the marks for me -- bizarre murders, unusual subject mater, raunchy humor and true wit, as well and some randy sex scenes that, as gratuitous as they are, still managed to make me smile because they were never taken seriously.

Snake by James McClure

At the opposite end of the 1975 detective novel spectrum is this police procedural from South African writer James McClure. As somber as Block's book was lighthearted this crime novel depicts the era of apartheid in all its ugliness and bigotry. The book dares to show policemen working together, black and white, Afrikaners and Bantu, without one trace of the political correctness we are suffering from these days. McClure' s main policemen characters are Lt. Tromp Kramer, a white Afrikaner, and Mickey Zondi, a Zulu. Kramer calls the locals coons, wogs and coolies. Zondi doesn't even blink at the use of these terms. There is also Sgt. Marais, one of the most ultra conservative and nationalist Afrikaners in the police force. He often resorts to the term "kaffir" -- a word that was banned from usage in South Africa as it is the equivalent of nigger in the US. Oddly, the word is borrowed from Islam and literally means a non-believer in Allah. But just as "gook", the Korean pejorative in their own language for white men, was turned into an insult for Korean soldiers during that war I can see how a relatively harmless word from another culture was appropriated by South African white men to insult an entire race.

The white policemen and the black policemen seem to tolerate one another amid all this obvious dislike. Kramer despite his uncensored language is more than tolerant and has a friendship with Zondi that transcends their work relationship. Occasionally the reader is reminded of the reality of apartheid as in the scene when one of the police officers watches an argument between an African teacher hosting his class on a field trip and a nature museum official. The teacher is not allowed to enter a movie theater in the museum because there is a prominent sign marked "Whites Only".

And why a nature museum in this novel? Because, of course, as the title tells us there's a snake in the pages. The murder being investigated is of an exotic dancer who was apparently strangled by the python she used in her act. The death is described in detail and we know that she was visited by a man who she attempted to seduce in a very unorthodox manner -- well, creepy is the right word, I guess -- by letting the snake slither over her naked body as her visitor slowly undressed himself. Then we see that he kills her when the kinky sex gets out of hand. The mystery is not so much about who or how she was killed, but exactly which of the many male suspects is guilty of the murder.

Told parallel with this murder case is the investigation of a series of robbery/shootings in a poor neighborhood known as Peacedale. This had some powerful resonance for me with the rash of urban crime and bank robberies that have beset Chicago for the past ten years. The depiction of the gangster lifestyle of 70s era South Africa doesn't seem very different at all to what continues to plague 21st century cities in the US. The resolution of this portion of the novel has an interesting twist that further comments on the divisiveness of South African culture during the 1970s.

This is the first of McClure's I've ever read though I've known about them for decades. I found his manner of unrestrained violence and straightforwardness in presenting difficult topics refreshingly honest and real. Kramer, Zondi, Marais and all the rest of the policeman and law officers come alive on the page and are uniquely individual. McClure was a crime reporter for many years so he knows the ins and outs of both writing and the police in his native land. But he also manages to reveal a human side to all of his characters in the brief glimpses we get of his characters' personal lives. Even Marais who for the most part seemed to be a huge asshole had a couple of scenes where he was less hateful and more human. There was one touching scene where Kramer's girlfriend after moving to a new home donates her unwanted furniture and clothes to Zondi and his family. It's done without a patronizing manner and reveals character without one word of dialogue being spoken.

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this short series of crime novels. I own copies of almost all of them and they've been set aside for this month and the coming new year.

All in all, here are two books from 1975 well worth your time. Whether you lean towards wild and crazy or somber and humane each of these books give you aspects of 1970s life that are genuine and not artificial.