Skyscraper (37 page)

 
1
. “Faith Baldwin, Author of 85 Books, Is Dead at 84,” New York Times, 20 March 1978, reprinted in
New York Times Biographical Services
(New York: New York Times Company, 1978), 283.

 
2
. For facts on Baldwin's life and career, I am indebted to Elaine Fredericksen, “Faith Baldwin,” in
The American National Biography
vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 47–48; and to Nancy Regan, “Faith Baldwin,” in
Twentieth-Century Romance and Historical Writers
(London: St. James Press, 1994), 31–33.

 
3
. Lisa M. Fine,
The Souls of the Skyscraper: Female Clerical Workers in Chicago, 1870–1930
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990), 144.

 
4
. “Faith Baldwin, Author of 85 Books,” 284.

 
5
. Qtd. In Laura Hapke,
Tales of the Working Girl: Wage-Earning Women in American Fiction, 1890–1925
(New York: Twayne/MacMillan, 1992), 124.

 
6
. Edna Ferber, “The Girl Who Went Right” (1918; reprinted in
America and I
, ed. Joyce Ansler, Boston: Beacon Press, 1990), 57–71; hereafter pages cited in text.

 
7
. Joanne Meyerowitz,
Women Adrift: Independent Wage-Earners in Chicago, 1880–1925
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 131.

 
8
. Ellen Wiley Todd, The “
New Woman” Revisited: Painting and Gender Politics on Fourteenth Street School
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 263.

 
9
. Fredericksen, “Faith Baldwin,” 47.

10
. Ibid.

11
. Tania Modleski,
Loving with a Vengeance: Mass Produced Fantasies for Women
(New York: Routledge, 1984), 14–15.

12
. Ibid., 36.

13
. 
New York Herald Tribune Books
, 1 November 1931, 16.

14
. Carole Anne Taylor, “Readerly/Writerly Relations and Social Change,” in
What We Hold in Common: An Introduction to Working-Class Studies
, ed. Janet Zandy (New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2000), 166.

FAITH BALDWIN
(1893–1978) was one of the most prolific
mid-twentieth century authors of popular fiction. She published eighty-five books between 1921 and 1977, many of them focused on women juggling family and career, including
White Collar Girl, Men Are Such Fools!
, and
An Apartment for Peggy
, which was made into a Hollywood film in 1948.

Femmes Fatales restores to print the best of women's writing in the classic pulp genres of the mid-twentieth century. From mystery to hard-boiled noir to taboo lesbian romance, these rediscovered queens of pulp offer subversive perspectives on a turbulent era
.

SKYSCRAPER

Faith Baldwin

Afterword by Laura Hapke

eISBN: 9781558617872 | ISBN: 9781558614574

Lynn is an ambitious young woman who loves her job in a gleaming new Manhattan skyscraper. Soon, Lynn falls in love with Tom, the young clerk down the hall. They are so in love that if they don't get married, something improper is bound to happen.... But her company has a strict new policy: Any woman who marries will be immediately fired. First published in 1931 as a serial in
Cosmopolitan
—the same year the Empire State Building opened its doors—
Skyscraper
marks the advent of a new kind of romance, and a new kind of heroine. This
Sex in the City
for its time was made into a pre-Code Hollywood movie starring Maureen O'Sullivan.

“With its sexual bargains and betrayals, insider trades and financial maneuvers,
Skyscraper
is pulp fiction at its best.”

—Maria Dibattista, author of
Fast-Talking Dames

“A captivating and quietly subversive novel, featuring a spunky young working woman struggling to make it on her own.
Skyscraper
declares that despite all challenges, women should insist on their right to have it all.”

—Alicia Daly,
Ms
.

FAITH BALDWIN
(1893–1978) was one of the most prolific
mid-twentieth century authors of popular fiction. She published eighty-five books between 1921 and 1977, many of them focused on women juggling family and career, including
White Collar Girl, Men Are Such Fools!
, and
An Apartment for Peggy
, which was made into a Hollywood film in 1948.

BEDELIA

Vera Caspary

Afterword by A. B. Emrys

eISBN: 9781558616486 | ISBN: 9781558615076

Long before
Desperate Housewives
, there was Bedelia: beautiful and “adoring as a kitten.” An ideal housekeeper and lover, she wants nothing more than to please her insecure new husband, who can't believe his luck. But is Bedelia too good to be true? A mysterious new neighbor turns out to be a detective on the trail of a picture-perfect wife with a string of dead husbands in her wake. Caspary builds this story to a peak of psychological suspense when her characters are trapped together in a blizzard. The true Bedelia—the woman who escaped a life on the street—is revealed.

“You must read
Bedelia
to see just how slick Miss Caspary's technique of soft-shoe terror can be—how frightening she can make the chatter at an innocent dinner party, the lure of a lady's deshabille, the glimpse of a black pearl in a dresser drawer.”

—New York Times

“A sinister entertainment, especially for admirers of the psychological horror story.”

—New Yorker

“Vera Caspary's gift is perhaps more subtle and deadly than Jim Thompson's, David Goodis's, and Charles Willeford's.”

—Robert Polito, author of
Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson

“A tour de force of psychological suspense,
Desperate Housewives
meets
Double Indemnity
in Caspary's
Bedelia
.”

—Liahna Armstrong, President Emerita, Popular Culture Association

LAURA

Vera Caspary

Afterword by A. B. Emrys

ISBN: 9781558615052 (print only)

Meet Laura Hunt, a “modern woman” —ravishing, elegant, ambitious, and utterly unknowable. No one can resist her charms, not even cynical NYPD detective Mark McPherson sent to track down the killer who has turned Laura into a faceless corpse. By day McPherson interrogates the men who loved her; by night, he combs her apartment for clues, gazing at her portrait, smelling her lingering scent. One stormy night, the door opens to an electrifying plot twist.

Laura
is a work of riveting psychological suspense, earning Otto Preminger's 1944 film adaptation an Academy Award, and lasting renown as one of the greatest film noirs.

“An intriguing melodrama . . . A top-drawer mystery.”

—New York Times

“Everyone loves the movie, of course, but it is now possible again to read this stunning novel with one of the great surprise moments in the history of mystery fiction. Brava!”

—Otto Penzler, owner, The Mysterious Bookshop

“Laura
continues to weave a spell . . . achieving a kind of perfection in its balance between low motives and high style.”

—Roger Ebert,
Chicago Sun Times

“Laura
will beguile and unsettle readers: a love story with a sinister underside . . . it remains a compelling original.”

—Liahna Armstrong, president emerita, Popular Culture Association

VERA CASPARY
is the author of many books, plays, and screenplays. Her film credits include
The Blue Gardenia
and
A Letter to Three Wives
.

THE BLACKBIRDER

Dorothy B. Hughes

Afterword by Amy Villarejo

eISBN: 9781558617742 | ISBN: 9781558614680

For three years Julie Guilles, the daughter of wealthy American expats, has navigated Nazi-occupied Paris as an agent of the French Resistance. Caught in a web of political intrigue, Julie flees to New York in secret, where an acquaintance from the old world turns up dead on her doorstep. Once a sheltered socialite, Julie must rely on raw nerve and a smuggled diamond necklace to find the legendary Blackbirder, a trafficker who flies refugees to freedom across the Mexican border.

“One of crime fiction's finest writers of psychological suspense.”

—Marcia Muller, author of the Sharon McCone novels

“Dorothy B. Hughes was such a mistress of dark suspense, I always had to read the end of her books first to keep from biting off all my fingernails.”

—Margaret Maron, author of the Deborah Knott novels

IN A LONELY PLACE

Dorothy B. Hughes

Afterword by Lisa Maria Hogeland

eISBN: 9781558617223 | ISBN: 9781558614550

Postwar Los Angeles is a lonely place where a strangler is preying on young women. Dix Steele, a cynical vet with a chip on his shoulder, is the LAPD's top suspect. Dix knows enough to watch his step, especially since his best friend is on the force, but when he meets the sultry Laurel Gray, something begins to crack. Hughes's brilliant portrayal of American masculinity and the fine line between danger and desire became the classic film noir by Nicholas Ray, starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame.
In a Lonely Place
is an unforgettable thriller.

“If you wake up in the night screaming with terror, don't say we didn't warn you.”

—New York Times Book Review

“A tour de force laying open the mind and motives of a killer with extraordinary empathy. The structure is flawless, and the scenes of postwar LA have an immediacy that puts Chandler to shame. No wonder Hughes is the master we keep turning to.”

—Sara Paretsky, author of the V.I. Warshawski novels

“A superb novel by one of crime fiction's finest writers of psychological suspense . . . What a pleasure it is to see this tale in print once again!”

—Marcia Muller, author of the Sharon McCone novels

“This lady is the queen of noir, and
In a Lonely Place
is her crown.”

—Laurie R. King, author of the Mary Russell novels

DOROTHY B. HUGHES
(1904–1993) was the author of several crime novels, many of which were made into major motion
pictures. Her books include
The Blackbirder, In a Lonely Place, Ride the Pink Horse
, and
The Fallen Sparrow
.

BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING

Evelyn Piper

Afterword by Maria Dibattista

eISBN: 9781558617759 | ISBN: 9781558614741

Blanche Lake, a young mother, arrives to pick up her daughter at nursery school. But Bunny Lake has vanished, and soon everyone suspects that she is merely a figment of her mother's female imagination. Searching desperately for her daughter, with no help from the police, Blanche needs every trick in the book to navigate a world that distrusts and disowns her. This psychological thriller was made into a classic motion picture in 1965 by Otto Preminger.

“The distraught, gutsy, and hip mother I played in
Bunny Lake Is Missing
is my all-time favorite role.”

—Carol Lynley

“A brilliant tale of psychological suspense,
Bunny Lake is Missing
is a classic thriller—a riveting revisit to the dark side of the 50s, where the tension beneath the calm surface has an undertow that drags the reader into its grip. Prime pulp—pure pleasure.”

—Linda Fairstein, author of
The Bone Vault

“A beautiful job . . . Frantic scenes of action, contagious terror, and near hysteria.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

EVELYN PIPER
was the pseudonym of Merriam Modell (1908–1994), whose novels include
The Lady and Her Doctor, Hanno's Doll
, and
The Nanny
(1965), which was made into a
film starring Bette Davis.