Created by Adam Knight
Pseudonym of Lawrence Lariar
Other pseudonyms include Michael Lawrence, Michael Stark
(1908-81)
SUGAR SHANNON was a female investigative reporter. An obvious rip-off of G.G. Fickling’s Honey West, she only appeared once, in a 1960 paperback original with the totally clever title of Sugar Shannon, with the cover proudly boasting that it was “A new series by Adam Knight.”
Except there was no series.
The eponymous Sugar Shannon was all we got. Sugar was, of course, drop dead gorgeous, full of “girlish instincts” and “womanly intuition.” She and her gal pal Gwen Moody are looking into two murders in New York City’s artsy-artsy demi-monde, mostly in Greenwich Village, where they come across more than a few rather colorful characters (and potential suspects).
There not much action–or even, despite some huffing and puffing blurbery on the back cover and slyly suggestive front cover, much sex–and Pulp International rightly tagged it as “pretty silly, and more than a little condescending.”
But oh that cover…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam Knight, under his real name of Lawrence Lariar, wrote several mystery novels, including two about Homer Bull, an overweight comic strip writer and amateur sleuth, and his Watson-type assistant, Ham McAndrews, who also happens to be his cartoonist. As Knight he wrote eight novels featuring private eye Steve Conacher and as Michael Lawrence he penned another couple of P.I. yarns featuring Johnny Amsterdam. In all, he wrote over 100 books, which is impressive since his day jobs including working as a cartoonist for Colliers and Parade, as a “story man” at Disney, and drawing the comic strip Barry O’Neil. The Man With the Lumpy Nose, a Homer Bull novel, won the Dodd Mead Red Badge Prize in 1944.
NOVELS
- Sugar Shannon (1960) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
