Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Blonde Verdict by Carter Brown

Police Lieutenant Al Wheeler is back in Blonde Verdict. Al is drinking at this bar when a guy comes in and drops dead at his feet.  It turns out the dead guy is a lawyer. The dead lawyer has set up a meeting with Wheeler and keels over. It turns out the lawyer is killed by curare. Al gets to meet a redhead secretary, a blonde widow, and a silver blonde. Al's trouble is that he is an unorthodox cop and this is an unorthodox case. This title was revised and printed in the US as The Brazen in 1960. Blonde Verdict is the 13th entry in the Numbered Series and published in 1956 by Horwitz Publications.

Horwitz Edition 1956
Signet August 1960                                     Signet 1971 reprint

3 comments:

  1. Hi,
    I'm a french fan of Carter Brown and trying to collect all french translations. I found a Brazen one but it seems that there isn't any for Blonde Verdict. I would be delighted if it was actually the same book but you seem to be the only one to link them (both appear in all Wheeler's novels lists I could find). So, I'd like to know how you discovered the link. Did you read both ?
    Thank you so much for your answer, regards
    Eric Martinaud
    France

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    Replies
    1. Hi
      Thanks for the visit and the comment. I read The Brazen a long time ago. A couple of years ago i started to read The Blonde Verdict. I stopped after the first couple of pages and made the realization that I read this before, so pulled out my copy of the Brazen and compared the first chapter, almost identical.

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  2. Fast answer, thank you.
    I suppose that if the first chapters are the same, the following are identical also. It could explain why we don't have a translation of this book. Actually, I can't find neither a translation of The Wench is Wicked (very frustrating as it's the first Wheeler) nor of Chorine Makes a Killing. But, the quest is not over ;)
    By the way, you've got a great blog. I happenned to read a few Nick Carter's books (in french, of course :), Gérard de Villiers editor) but I never realized before how long was the series compared to the dozen that was translated.
    I know that in the late 60's, Editions Arabesque printed several Nick Carter supposedly written by a Mr Noël Ward. I'll check one day if they belong to the Killmaster's series.
    Thanks again, A+
    Eric

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