Guardian Newspaper 1000 Novels discussion

In June we will be reading No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase for our Crime category - who's in?

Yes I’m in. Have read it before but a long time ago.

I will be starting tomorrow.

Which edition are folk reading? The book was largely rewritten in 1961 as Chase felt the 30s setting wasn’t of interest to a 60s crowd.

Having read the opening pages of both, they are a lot more different than I expected. I’m plumping for the 30s version.

Interesting - I didn't know that! I just finished the 1930s edition. While noir isn't generally my preferred type of crime novel, I couldn't put this down once I started it.

I read the “complete unexpurgated edition” from Stark House Crime Classics. No Orchids for Miss Blandish / Twelve Chinamen and a Woman

It’s hard to find this book in public libraries.

It looks like the 1939 version is free online:

https://manybooks.net/titles/chasejot...

I started to read it once, and just could not stand it.
Especially the American slang which was never spoken anywhere by anyone ever.
And, you know, the sadism.

Well, that was good. Five stars from me.

(my review - no spoilers about anything that happens beyond chapter one)

**********

I can't help it, it's 5 stars. The main point of a noir novel is to keep you entertained, keep you turning the pages, to steep you in the murky vile world of lowlives and gangsters, and this book managed that in heaps.

In 1961, it seems that Chase heavily rewrote this book, to make it more saleable to a more cynical and numbed audience, but I read the original 1938 edition, because I wanted that 30s feel that was quite soon shocking for the day.

Written in 6 weekends, Chase's plan was to outdo the notorious Postman Always Rings Twice, with more sexual threat, more violence, lower morals and more killings and he certainly did that. While the depiction of events are mild by modern standards, the events themselves aren't and sometimes things are better (and more disturbing) left unsaid - another reason I didn't want to read the 1961 edition.

The book opens with a trio of small-time crooks falling across a chance opportunity to steal a $50,000 necklace which turns into an unplanned kidnapping of a society beauty and murder of her boyfriend, which then quickly turns into events a hell of a lot worse.

The plot is fast and well executed, with each new character neatly and quickly sketched, and with the point of view switching with dizzying frequency. Chase tightens the screw skillfully and the whole is wrapped up satisfactorily in well under 200 pages.

Christopher wrote: "It looks like the 1939 version is free online:

https://manybooks.net/titles/chasejot..."

Dennis wrote: "It’s hard to find this book in public libraries." Thanks! That's how I obtained it.

On the one hand, this book raced by me. The double-crosses, the chase scenes, the revenge plots that go wrong and right...all of them did what they were supposed to do, which was to pull me forward from scene to scene. I'm not surprised this book became a movie. I am surprised it was written by an Englishman: he seems like the missing link between Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane.

On the other hand, the misogyny in the book (expressed by both men and women) was more stomach-turning than the violence.