January is Gold Medal Books Month at the PorPor Books Blog
Book Review: 'Before It's Too Late' by Lou Cameron
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| image courtesy of Paul Eng, Bookscans |
'Before It's Too Late' (176 pp.) is Gold Medal Book No. R2197, and was published in January 1970.
Lou Cameron (1924 - 2010) wrote a small library of pulp fiction in all genres, particularly westerns (under the house name 'Tabor Evans').
'Too Late' is set in 1969, when twenty-four year-old Steve Warren comes back from the Vietnam war to his Midwestern hometown of Jefferson City. Needing a job, Warren signs on with the Ace Collection Agency and is given a tough, even dangerous, initial assignment: repossess an automobile from one 'Mau Mau' Fenwick, leader of the Jefferson City hippy tribe..... and something of a psychopath.
Warren's repossession goes off without incident. But then things get complicated when Mau Mau turns up dead, his body bruised and battered. As the investigation unfolds it becomes clear that something very odd is going on in Jefferson City, something that its leading citizens would rather not talk about.
Steve Warren teams up with a beautiful Israeli medical student to do some investigating of his own, as the bodies and the alibis begin to pile up..........
'Before It's Too Late' was something of a disappointment. The first half of the book displays Cameron's skills at pulp fiction writing: clean, straightforward prose; dialogue that is a bit dated by contemporary standards, but still believable; some vintage male chauvinism; and a set of nubile, pliant, and utterly groovy chicks.
Unfortunately, the second half of the novel suffers from Cameron's inability to keep the plot simple. So many red herrings, coincidences, and contrivances are thrown into the narrative that the final segment explaining Whodunit is over ten pages long. Even after re-reading it several times I still couldn't figure exactly, what, had happened.
Summing up, I can't call 'Before It's Too Late' a neglected Pulp Fiction Gem. Perhaps it's unfair to reason that Cameron, who made a living from cranking out as many books as he could, was going to take the time to craft a stellar work of fiction. However, this is one Gold Medal Book that likely can stay on the shelf.
Warren's repossession goes off without incident. But then things get complicated when Mau Mau turns up dead, his body bruised and battered. As the investigation unfolds it becomes clear that something very odd is going on in Jefferson City, something that its leading citizens would rather not talk about.
Steve Warren teams up with a beautiful Israeli medical student to do some investigating of his own, as the bodies and the alibis begin to pile up..........
'Before It's Too Late' was something of a disappointment. The first half of the book displays Cameron's skills at pulp fiction writing: clean, straightforward prose; dialogue that is a bit dated by contemporary standards, but still believable; some vintage male chauvinism; and a set of nubile, pliant, and utterly groovy chicks.
Unfortunately, the second half of the novel suffers from Cameron's inability to keep the plot simple. So many red herrings, coincidences, and contrivances are thrown into the narrative that the final segment explaining Whodunit is over ten pages long. Even after re-reading it several times I still couldn't figure exactly, what, had happened.
Summing up, I can't call 'Before It's Too Late' a neglected Pulp Fiction Gem. Perhaps it's unfair to reason that Cameron, who made a living from cranking out as many books as he could, was going to take the time to craft a stellar work of fiction. However, this is one Gold Medal Book that likely can stay on the shelf.
