FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE TALL DELORES

 The Tall Delores by Michael Avallone  (1953)

Let us sing the praises of Michael Avallone, outspoken author of more that 223 books (a prety specific n umber, there), -- although he claimed over a thousand books -- and "the fastest typewriter in the East."  

Perhaps Bill Crider said it best, "He could sure tell a story.  He couldn't write, but he could sure tell a story."

Avallone wrote in almost every genre, but his main emphasis was in mysteries and suspense.  Actually, it was in "alternative" mysteries, a Bill Pronzini has described it. Pronzini could easily have devoted both his critical looks as bad mystery writing, Gun in Cheek and Son of Gun in Cheek, to Avallone alone.  Avallone's style was "an ungrammatical, mispelled, brain-jangling approximation of English," as per Francis M. Nevins.  Take the groaing syntax of Carrol John Daley, add the slipshoodiness of Robert Leslie Bellam, and season with the total eccentricity of Harry Stephen Keeler and you might come close -- but not too close -- to the lamentably sublime artistry of Michael Avallone.

His major character is private eye Ed Noon, who first appeared in 1953's The Tall Delores, and continued through some three dozen novels over the next 35 years, eventually ending up as the private eye to the president of the United States.  (Avallone did write one Ed Noon short story in the late Forties, but it was not pubished until 1971.)  The Noon books are filled with wisecracks and Avallone's deep devotion to old movies and baseball.  (In the beginning, Noon was a fan of the New York Giants, but when the Mets opened their franchise, both Avallone and Noon switched their loyalties and became die-hard fans.)

Avallone wrote fast and evidently seldom (if ever) stopped to rewrite or edit himself, which may explain one scene in The Tall Delores in which a woman strips, first taking off her skirt, then her negligee.  I doun't think anyone has ever contradicted Nevins' assessment, "By normal standards every Nooner is an inept mess."

One thing stands out about the Ed Noon books, however.  They are just plain fun.  Perhaps they can even be considered a palate cleaser for the more literate, well-plotted books, brimming with a sense of place and a sense of character.

So.  The Tall Delores.

She's a six foot five inch behemoth of a beauty, towering over the six foot Noon.  Noon esitmates her bust size at 50 inches, but that strains credibility as well as bressieres.

She enters Noon's small office, dubbed the "mouse auditorium." wanting him to find her fiance who has bolted with fivee thousand dollars of her money.  Noon collects a $200 retainer and Delores leaves.  At the same time, the man she wants to find turns up dead.  Noon goes to her hotel room and finds a Chinese man there dead with a broken neck, with Delores standing over the body.  So, there's a bit of racism here -- the corpse is labeled a Chinaman and a Chink.  Delores knocks Noon out and flees, leaving Noon to wake up with the corpse and the cops surrounding him.  Noon would call his best lawyer friend, but it turns out he has been beaten to death outside a nightclub.  Noon escapes from the cops.  Noon hooks up with a gorgeous hooker named Wheeler and tells her his name is Woolsey.  (Remember Wheeler and Woolsey, the old comedy act?)  A cabbie gives Noon a tip that he dropped Delores off at a nightclub run by the five foot gay crime boss Doc ("Don't call me Doc") Cook, who is usually bookcased by a pair of pig-uglies.  Doc Clarke and his thugs want to ice Noon, but he gets away -- but not before learning that the entire affait rests on half a million dollars worth of uncut diamonds and a map to their location.  Noon pulls a gun on Delores and Wheeler takes them to the apartmant of a hooker friend to hide out.. There are hints that Wheeler and her friend are lesbian lovers, but Noon kisses Wheeler and they fall in love and into bed...Oh.  And there are crooked cops.

Here's just a random sampling from the book:

"Delores as a hell of a lot more than tall.  She was huge, statuesque.  A Galamazon.  A regular Empire State Building of female feminine dame.  And all woman, besides."

"That kind is as inflexible as a wooden ruler and aboput as fair as a Southern jury with a colored chicken thief."

"A siren bansheed up from the corner and the meat wagon pulled up."

"Built like she was it was like spelling Elephant with the letters m-o-u-s-e."

"She descended on me like a tree full of the same apes she looked like."

"...the tires screeched like four old maids finding a man in the closet..."

"There was enough perculair about Doc to make a psychiatrist sharpen a dozen pencils."

I could go on, but then I would be copying the entire novel verbatim.  Sufice it to say this is not a book for the kiddies.  It's for the groan-ups.

These Nooners can be an acquired taste, but if you are into that sort of thing, they can be glorious.