Because I Needed a Fischer Fix …

The Silent Dust, by Bruno Fischer (Signet, 1951). This was the fourth of five Fischer novels to feature Ben Helm, an ex-cop turned private investigator in New York City.

Cover illustration by Warren King.

“Hot Lips,” by Jack Hanley

Hot Lips, by Jack Hanley (Intimate, 1952).

I don't own this long-forgotten paperback novel, but in its 2019 write-up about Hot Lips, Pulp International said its story is

about an ‘all-girl’ orchestra called the Musical Queens and the things they do when boys aren’t around. Which we can understand. Just look at the male figure [on the cover], whose name is Pete. What exactly does he bring to this party? A sense of brooding entitlement? A vague homophobic hostility? The latter, for sure, since he lost his wife to another woman and is dismayed to find himself in sexual competition with the band’s man-hating sax player. Why does saxy Mona hate men? Because her husband turned out to be a drag queen. But all Pete has to do is wait a bit, because while the wholesome, virginal object of desire in this, Althea, may be tempted by wild musical lesbians, such assignations are never permanent in mid-century genre fiction. It’s heteronormativity or death—literally, sometimes. Put Hot Lips in the lesbians-are-bad bin with a pile of other novels from the period.

The party responsible for this tantalizing tale, Jack Hanley (1905-1963), has been described as “a novelist and television writer of no special talent, [who] specialized in racy material:” Among Hanley’s other works of fiction were Star Lust (1951), Very Private Secretary (1952), and New York Model (1953). He also penned non-fiction books, including Let's Make Mary: Being a Gentleman's Guide to Scientific Seduction in Eight Easy Lessons (1937).

As to the cover of Hot Lips, it was painted by Warren King (1916-1968). In addition to creating magazine illustrations and book covers, King was a longtime editorial cartoonist for the New York Daily News and a comic-book artist.