Pulp Friday: Headed for a Hearse

“His address was Death Row and his lease was up in six days… “

They don’t write cover blurbs like that any more.

Today’s Pulp Friday contribution is the 1960 UK Pan edition of the 1935 novel, Headed for a Hearse, by Jonathan Latimer.

Latimer was a crime reporter for newspapers in his native Chicago before going on to write a series of hard-boiled novels. He also worked in Hollywood where he wrote a number of screenplays, including The Glass Key (1942), The Big Clock (1948) and Nocturne (1946).

My parents had a good collection of Pan paperbacks on their bookshelf and I can remember, even as a very small child, being fascinated by the fantastic cover art.

The story sounds good, too.

“SIX DAYS to go before Westland would go to the electric chair for the murder of his wife…

SIX DAYS for him to sweat in the death cell – with a gangster and a fiend for company.

SIX DAYS for private investigator William Crane to flirt with death and to find the real killer…”