But his perspective has changed after Ruth’s passing and he languishes over what could have been, every memory from his long but utterly failed marriage cutting at his soul as he retreats behind a mask of stoic manliness. The couple were unhappily distanced, and it’s not like Stuart lacked money or power-even pushing fifty he’s still “Big Daddy Sex” to his legions of fans, one of the most powerful and respected actors in Hollywood. It’s only after the death of his wife Ruth that Clay Stuart realized his life has meant nothing. Gold Medal #kl303 – 1963 – the unstoppable machine that was, is, and forever will be Robert McGinnis. Don’t Speak to Strange Girls was one of many titles provided by Prologue I’m not sure what drew me to it, but I figured I had to start into Whittington’s works somewhere. Roughly 10% of his books are available: eight of his books have been released by Stark House Press in their quality series of doubles and triples four have been made into ebooks by 280 Steps and Prologue Books has digitized another ten. Old, used copies of his paperback novels sell for upwards of $30. That’s a pretty impressive output, but few of them are available today to speak of Harry Whittington as a forgotten author is to understate a fact. Thus, Whittington has a well-earned reputation as a “king of the pulps” and “the king of paperback originals.” While he started writing westerns in the ’40s, the bulk of Whittington’s writing fell into the suspense, crime, and noir genres he even did novelizations for Bonanza and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. His bibliography is a wealth of prose, a herculean effort among paperback writers: he wrote over 200 novels, 85 of them packed into the space of twelve years.

Harry Whittington is one of the most prolific paperback writers that I’ve never read before.

Strange Bargain by Harry Whittington