Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Another Time, Another World

Rap Sheet reader Mike Beiriger e-mailed me recently, asking for suggestions of Los Angeles-based crime and pulp novels published between 1967 and 1969, and set amidst “the music scene, Sunset Strip, hippies, etc. The important thing,” he concluded, “is that it be written during the times.”

A few favorite books I think would fall within his parameters are:

Traps Need Fresh Bait (1967), by Erle Stanley Gardner
The Instant Enemy (1968), by Ross Macdonald
The Love-Death Thing (1969), by Thomas B. Dewey
The Cheim Manuscript (1969), by Richard S. Prather

In addition, Cinnamon Kiss, by Walter Mosley, is set in L.A. during the late ’60s, though it wasn’t published until 2005.

But let’s throw this matter open to The Rap Sheet’s full readership. Can anyone suggest to Mr. Beiriger  additional titles that would fit his needs? Leave your recommendations in the Comments section of this post.

2 comments:

mikeby@earthlink.net said...

Thanks, all!

Gary Phillips said...

Not quite about hippies, but I think the Strip is in it, Samantha, aka The Case of the Angry Actress by Howard Fast wrting as E.V. Cunningham. The first in the Masao Masuto mysteries -- a Japanese-American homicide detective on the Beverly Hills police force.