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."

Addendum

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