Vince Slader

Created by Ovid DeMaris
Pseudonym of Ovid E. Desmarais
(1919-1998)

Los Angeles private eye VINCE SLADER is an ex-cop with a weakness for booze and dames in trouble, in the 1959 paperback original from Avon, The Long Night. In it, he’s hired by a casino to hunt down a gambler who’s run up a $28,000 tab, but ends up framed for murder, with a senate investigation committee on his ass.

Oh, and the West Coast mob would like a word with him as well.

I guess he survives, because he showed up in a sequel with a truly great title: The Gold-Plated Sewer (1960). In it, our man Vince is hired to find out who’s trying to kill superstar Freddie Sharpe, a very popular singer, beloved by millions, who’s actually a truly despicable asshole. “What makes this book interesting, though not essential,” says dcpurcell, an Amazon reviewer, “is that nearly every event described corresponds to incidents in Frank Sinatra’s life.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ovid DeMaris (a pen name of Ovid E. Desmaris–What? Ovid is okay, but Desmaris won’t work?) was a journalist and novelist whose speciality was hard, tough crime novles about the mob (The Hoods Take Over, The Enforcer, The Last Mafiosi), protagonists called Vince (The Long Night, Ride the Gold Mare) and true crime books on such subjects as Dillinger, the Lindbergh kidnapping, Jimmy Fratianno, and–ahem–J. Edgar Hoover.

NOVELS

• The Long Night (1959) | Kindle it!
• The Gold-Plated Sewer (1960) | Buy this book

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.