Gil Brewer (1922–1983)

“Doom. You recognize Doom easily. It’s a feeling and a taste, and it’s black, and it’s heavy. It comes down over your head, and wraps tentacles around you, and sinks long dirty fingernails into your heart. It has a stink like burning garbage. Doom.”

A tv repair man goes out on a call and immediately falls in love with the gorgeous young woman at the house and agrees to help her kill her sick stepfather. Snap! Just like that!
So, of course, it goes to follow that the plan is terrible and suspicion falls on them immediately. And that is the story. The end. On the positive side, it reads quickly!… (more)

The Vengeful Virgin by Gil Brewer

Eighteen year old Shirley Angela is the caretaker of her ailing stepfather (Victor), a task that she finds more than unpleasant. She meets a television repairman Jack (and) falls head-over-heels for him. Blinded by love they decide to end Victor's life and live off his money, what could go wrong?

The Vengeful Virgin is an intense, suspense filled dramatic page-turner. A thrilling story of love, lust, greed, and revenge. I highly recommend to those who enjoy a gripping read.… (more)

For me, this 1958 crime novel is to the anfractuous-girl-with-money-wants-affair-with-me fantasy what PKD's A Scanner Darkly is to recreational drug use. The ending will scare the bejeebers out of you—in an intellectual don’t-challenge-the-gods kind of way—but you can't stop turning the pages. I haven’t read many books in this genre so I can’t tell you if it is superior in that way, but an underlying subtext of sincere regret and spurned grace enables us to sympathize with the protagonist and say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”… (more)