The deeper and deeper I dive into 1950s paperback crime fiction, the more I’m convinced that Harry Whittington is the best among them. Better than Jim Thompson. Better than Charles Williams. Better than Cornell Woolrich. However, Whittington doesn’t receive the critical acclaim of his contemporaries, and my theory is that has everything to do with his tremendous output. After all, the man produced over 150 novels with a myriad of pseudonyms in a variety of genres. His legacy as a master is a victim of his profound work ethic. For my money, I will put the 20 best Harry Whittington novels against anyone else’s top 20 from that era.
The Naked Jungle was Whittington’s 1955 Ace Books release that survives today as an ebook from vintage crime reprinter Prologue Books. The plot is simple: a plane flying from Honolulu to Sydney crashes in the South Pacific and strands three survivors on a life raft and then a deserted tropical island.
The cast of this very special episode of Lost is:
Krayer is a brilliant know-it-all fueled by logic and a will to survive. It’s his skill that guides his two companions to survive when lost at sea and later stranded on the island. He’s also a loathsome jackass and dangerous control freak.
Fran is his sexy wife. She had finally made her decision to leave Krayer right before the plane went down into the ocean. How will her reliance on her husband to remain alive impact her decision to be rid of him?
And there’s Webb, our enigmatic protagonist running away from his past. He becomes instantly beguiled by Fran from the first time he saw her on the plane. Now he’s marooned with the woman of his dreams and a cunning sociopath who won’t let her go.
The threesome must join together to survive their hostile environment and the growing dysfunction between them. The original cover art of this paperback looks like a cheap-o romance novel, but it’s way more than that. It’s a novel of survival - on the inflatable raft and the inhospitable island. It’s also a psychological suspense novel as Krayer and Webb jockey for position to be the Alpha Male between them with luscious Fran as the prize.
Make no mistake about it, this book is sexy as hell. Because it was 1955, there are no graphic descriptions of coupling, but Whittington knew what he was doing when devising a plot with a high-voltage, erotic charge. There are scenes in this book that you’ll replay in your mind long after you read them because of the palpable sexual energy they emit. You’ll totally understand why Webb wants Fran bad enough to risk his life to have her.
Whittington’s three-person take on Lord of the Flies is a total blast to read. The tension and power dynamics among the three characters was a completely suspenseful reading experience. The man against nature story alone would have been plenty exciting, but the chess game, cruelty, and graphic violence among these three castaways makes this paperback a next-level pleasure.
Highly recommended. Essential reading.
After the commercially successful 1966 “Man From Uncle” novel generated practically no money in his pocket, Harry Whittington went to work as an editor in the US Department of Agriculture, working for the Rural Electrification Administration. "I'd reached the low place where writing lost its delight.” (quote from author Ben Bridges blog).
In 1974, at age 59, Whittington quit his government job and went back to writing full-time. From his small but elegant house overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, he wrote his comeback novel, “Master of Blackoaks” (1976), a Deep-South 'slave gothic' written as Ashley Carter (Whittington's own name appears on the copyright page).
“Master of Blackoaks” was a hit. It's also an awesome book. Family drama, intrigue, violence, mucho sex and social commentary abound as the drama unfolds among members of the Baynard Family and their slaves on the struggling Alabama plantation known as Blackoaks.
The book reminded me of Ken Follett's “Pillars of the Earth” with all the characters jockeying for position to achieve divergent goals. The plantation violence is raw and in-your-face. The sex scenes are well executed. The slaves, masters and interlopers are vivid characters.
The book tackles difficult questions about race and culture without ever being racist or showing a lack of compassion for those swept up in the morally repugnant culture of slavery. The economic realities of the plantation life were explained well in the story as the masters of Blackoaks struggled to survive.
The book spawned three sequels that I can't wait to read.
Whittington learned propulsive plotting from his Gold Medal crime and western novels. Although this isn't an action novel, he brings the same discipline to this lost masterpiece. Despite the cover, it's not a romance novel. It's a literary novel with crazy family drama swirling for nearly 500 hard-to-put-down pages.
Hat tip to Ben Bridges on the background regarding the creation of this book and Pete Brandvold for alerting me to its existence.
First off, don't even think about reading this 500+ page plantation “slavery gothic” drama unless you've read and recall the first book of the series, “Master of Blackoaks” (1976). You'll be lost.
In the second 'Blackoaks', “Secret of Blackoaks”, crime and western author Harry Whittington (writing here as Ashley Carter) tells another compelling story of love, lust and violence among slaves and masters on the Alabama plantation of Blackoaks. This book begins about a year after the previous installment's conclusion. The novel is broken off into six sections with each focusing on a handful of characters from the first book.
There's a lot of travel happening in this volume - with action occurring in Tallahassee and New Orleans. Much of the drama concerns the Fulani slave brothers Blade and Moab with the central antagonist being plantation master Styles Kendric - in full, unhinged villain mode.
The story-lines were generally strong with the exception of one character's side adventure to New Orleans that felt a bit like page filler. But even that section pays dividends with a dramatic twisty conclusion.
There's also more action (think “Django Unchained”), graphic sex and violence than we saw in the first novel and the introduction of some fantastic new characters - including an abolitionist veteran in a decaying nearby plantation who may or may not be helping slaves find escape and freedom. A feisty new slave also enters the mix providing a reality check on the horrors of the institution to complacent counterparts.
Overall, this was another great outing from the King of the Paperbacks. If you read and enjoyed Blackoaks #1, you're sure to enjoy this installment. And with the strong and violent ending of this second book, you'll be dying to tackle the follow-up novel.
