 Well, girls, Mai Tai number six did Becky in. Told you she didn't have what it takes to join a sorority. 
James Hadley Chase's 1939 debut novel was titled No Orchids for Miss Blandish. He later wrote a sequel with orchid in the title. And here in 1949's You're Lonely When You're Dead—for which you see a 1951 Popular Library edition with Willard Downes cover art—the action is centered around fictional Orchid City. So we guess he liked orchids. No drunk sorority girls in this one. The main character, Vic Malloy, who would star in other Orchid City capers, runs a fixer agency for rich folks, and is called in by a husband to look into the background of the woman he married after a whirlwind romance. Shady history turns up and bodies fall, starting with one of Malloy's operatives. Lonely when you're dead? Not in this book. The dead are a crowd, as characters go bye-bye in quick succession. Revenge, theft, blackmail, action, murder, and effective comic relief combine to make this a nice read. It's not quite Miss Blandish. But then how could it be?
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1936—Crystal Palace Gutted by Fire
In London, the landmark structure Crystal Palace, a 900,000 square foot glass and steel exhibition hall erected in 1851, is destroyed by fire. The Palace had been moved once and fallen into disrepair, and at the time of the fire was not in use. Two water towers survived the blaze, but these were later demolished, leaving no remnants of the original structure. 1963—Warren Commission Formed
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. However the long report that is finally issued does little to settle questions about the assassination, and today surveys show that only a small minority of Americans agree with the Commission's conclusions. 1942—Nightclub Fire Kills Hundreds
In Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the fashionable Cocoanut Grove nightclub kills 492 people. Patrons were unable to escape when the fire began because the exits immediately became blocked with panicked people, and other possible exits were welded shut or boarded up. The fire led to a reform of fire codes and safety standards across the country, and the club's owner, Barney Welansky, who had boasted of his ties to the Mafia and to Boston Mayor Maurice J. Tobin, was eventually found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. |
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