Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Biblioholic's Bookshelf: The Tall Dolores, Fifties Private Eye

Michael Avallone was a prolific writer under his own name and a host of pseudonyms. He wrote many, many movie and TV novelizations including tales of The Partridge Family and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  I first encountered him because of a tape he did for Writer's Digest, So You Want to Write a Mystery Novel. He offered great pointers on suspense, while referring to a host of his books including Tales of the Frightened and The Tall Dolores.

I had to look a long time to find Dolores, the first adventure of Avallone's hero Ed Noon, who has some fun poked at him in Gun in Cheek. Adapting with the paperback times, he made Noon a spy in the sixties, and most of those titles were the ones on the used book shelves when I started shopping. Happily I found this edition in a catalog a few years back. Like Stand In For Sex, it's on my shelf because of the piece Avallone played in my learning experience. It has a great first line. "I'll begin by telling you she was the tallest girl that ever came into my office."



The Tall Dolores by Michael Avallone featuring Ed Noon


The Tall Dolores Perma Star Back Cover

Addendum
Killer Covers - A look at the cover for The Voodoo Murders plus an alternate Tall Dolores cover.

5 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

I have to say that I don't care much for that title. The Tall Dolores. Doesn't capture much really.

Sidney said...

Other titles included The Alarming Clock, The Bouncing Betty and The Fat Death to name just a few.

David Avallone said...

Thought you might be interested... we're now offering the Ed Noon novels on Amazon as eBooks. TIl the end of the day today (6/21/12), The Tall Dolores is a free download. So far we've put up the first four, and we're planning to offer another four every month.

Sidney said...

Thanks, David. I'll try to help spread the word.

David Avallone said...

Much appreciated, Sidney...

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