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the complete review - fiction

Home is the Sailor

by
Day Keene

general information | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B : solid pulp suspense

See our review for fuller assessment.

The complete review's Review:

       Only in his early thirties, Swen "Swede" Nelson has been working as a seaman for eighteen years and finally has enough. He's saved up twelve thousand dollars, and is set to buy a farm and settle down in the heart of the country. But he's barely ashore when he drinks too much, gambles with the wrong people, and wakes up thinking he's blown it all before he even properly got started. Instead it seems he has a guardian angel, plucked up and saved by too-good-to-be-true motel-owning beauty (and widow) Corliss.
       He falls for her, hard. But she feels the same way -- and in literally no time at all they're set to get married. Before they can, however, he's drawn into killing a man for her, and then helping to dispose of the body. The man had attacked and raped Corliss, but it doesn't feel entirely right .....
       Nelson ignores the well-meaning advice he receives to get out of there, and soon enough he's in deeper than he cares for. Corliss and he get hitched as quick as possible, but once they are that lustre in her eye is gone, and Nelson begins to get a feeling that there's something not right here. And he's not in much of a position to set things right. In fact, it feels like he's being used -- he's just not sure for what.
       It takes a while for the pieces to fall into place, but it's a decent pulp suspense novel that Keene offers. There's a bit of an over-reliance on Nelson's binge-drinking -- but then that's part of the reason he came to be in this position in the first place. Fast-paced, fairly risqué (for a 1950s novel), with a decent (if not entirely unexpected) twist slowly revealed Home is the Sailor offers good pulp entertainment. The Nelson-perspective is a bit limited, but he's supposed to be a bit naïve (for all his worldly experience) so it's authentic-sounding enough.
       Typical pulp fiction, Home is the Sailor should certainly satisfy anyone who enjoys the genre.

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Links:

• Hard Case Crime publicity page

• Craig's Book Club
• Ed Gorman & Friends

• See Index of Mysteries and Thrillers
• Other books from Hard Case Crime

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About the Author:

       Day Keene was actually Gunnar Hjerstedt. A prolific author, he lived 1904-1969.

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© 2005-2008 the complete review

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