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Couldn't make TCAF as planned - green_trilobite has a cold. Went to the Pulp Show yesterday, though, and got some paperbacks, including Frederic Brown's The Lenient Beast, which I'm saving for last. Today I finished reading the other Brown I picked up, Compliments of a Fiend; it's one of his Am and Ed Hunter series (uncle and nephew carnies/private eyes). I've become used to reading novels of this period and finding the sexual mores more complex than they are remembered as being - but this one was rather interesting; (spoilers)
The protagonist and the female lead pretty definitely sleep together several times over the course of the story (albeit between scenes) and do not stay together at the end - but neither does she turn out to be evil or anything - rather, after all the other plot issues are resolves, she basically says "I like you a lot, but you're obviously not ready to settle down, and now that we know your uncle/mentor is safe, you don't need me to comfort you, so no blame or regrets, but I'm marrying this night-club owner I met during the course of the case." And the protagonist thinks this over and concludes that yeah, she's probably right.
I'm wasn't so sure she should marry the other guy, mainly because she had only met him about 48 hours previous, plus he was her boss and involved in (fairly non-violent) organized crime (running a numbers game) - but I found it interesting that the book didn't seem to blame her for deciding not to wait for the hero anymore.
The protagonist and the female lead pretty definitely sleep together several times over the course of the story (albeit between scenes) and do not stay together at the end - but neither does she turn out to be evil or anything - rather, after all the other plot issues are resolves, she basically says "I like you a lot, but you're obviously not ready to settle down, and now that we know your uncle/mentor is safe, you don't need me to comfort you, so no blame or regrets, but I'm marrying this night-club owner I met during the course of the case." And the protagonist thinks this over and concludes that yeah, she's probably right.
I'm wasn't so sure she should marry the other guy, mainly because she had only met him about 48 hours previous, plus he was her boss and involved in (fairly non-violent) organized crime (running a numbers game) - but I found it interesting that the book didn't seem to blame her for deciding not to wait for the hero anymore.
