Sugar Puss On Dorchester Street

One of the earliest Canadian noir novels, Sugar-Puss on Dorchester Street tells the story of Gisele Lepine, beautiful farmer’s daughter who leaves her sleepy faming community for the neon lights of Montreal. In the fast-paced city, dreams quickly turn to nightmares as the young ‘farmette’ finds herself surrounded by drug-dealers, newspapermen, nightclub owners, chorus girls and a fatherly boxer who is well past his prime. It’s all a bit too much for innocent Gisele, who hasn’t yet had to deal with the violence that is to come. All becomes a whirlwind set in the post-war ‘open city’ in which burlesque houses were plentiful, Dorchester Street was lined with nightclubs and Decarie Boulevard served as Canada’s Sunset Strip.Newspaperman Al Palmer covered Montreal’s nightlife and criminal world—so very often intertwined—beginning in the 1940s. Published in 1949, Sugar-Puss on Dorchester Street, Palmer’s only novel, appeared the year before Montreal Confidential, his infamous ‘low down on the big town’.Will Straw is Professor of Communications at McGill University and Director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. He is the author of Cyanide and Sin: Visualizing Crime in 1950s America and over a hundred articles on media and urban life.The consulting editor for the Ricochet series is Brian Busby. Newspaperman Al Palmer covered Montreal’s nightlife and criminal world—so very often intertwined—beginning in the 1940s. Published in 1949, Sugar-Puss on Dorchester Street, Palmer’s only novel, appeared the year before Montreal Confidential, his infamous ‘low down on the big town’.

Originally published: Toronto: Export Pub. Enterprises, 1949.

By the author of The Crime on Cotes des Neiges, this is the second title in the Véhicule Press Ricochet series of hard-boiled detective novels set in Montreal. Originally published in 1952, Murder Over Dorval follows the investigations of hard-drinking, seasoned private dick, Russell Teed. First Edition back cover: In one hand she held a plane ticket for Montreal, in the other, a wad of greenbacks. She was a gorgeous looking redhead. For the sake of her lovely green eyes, Russell Teed took the plane and the money. But it wasn't long before he realized that whatever she had offered it wasn't worth it. A razor slash on his leg, a slug in his shoulder and the knowledge that three tough customers were gunning for him meant that Russell Teed Investigations were going to have to finish up their investigations, but quick. Readers of The Crime on Cote des Neiges will know that in a spot like this a Russell Teed adventure is really just climbing into high gear. With a background of Montreal and New York and some pretty terrific action, Murder Over Dorval is definitely Grade A entertainment.

Drug-runners threaten the West Coast! A semi-conscious man looks about a boat's cabin as a woman presses a wet cloth to his forehead. She's young, her nails are short, and her small hands are calloused. When another man tries to enter, she grabs a gun: "If you come down here, Joe, I'll shoot you." For a moment, the intruder doesn't move. "I don't want your damn' old hulk," he tells her. When the woman threatens a second time, he leaves. "You'd better too," he says. "She's near sunk." So begins the story of Clint, a reform school runaway, and Devvy, an orphaned farm girl saddled with a deceitful drunk of a stepmother. Clint and Devvy are pushed together as they struggle against the corrupt, criminal, violent adults trying to exert control over their lives. Perilous Passage first appeared in 1949 as a serial in the Saturday Evening Post. It has since been published in hardcover, paperback, and in Swedish translation. This Ricochet Books edition marks the first new edition since 1952.

Presented in its original pocketbook format, this entertaining account documents the 1950s nightlife of Canada's second largest city. Based on the original chronicle from the era, this overview's spirited prose complements a vast collection of archival photographs, vividly depicting the people and places of Montreal's underbelly. From glamorous cabarets and lush restaurants to late-night bars and memorable characters, this exploration demonstrates why this city has been named one of the most colorful communities on the continent.

A blindingly blonde woman walks into private detective Mike Garfin's downtown Montreal office, complaining that she's being followed by a man. That evening, at a luxurious Lakeshore home, he witnesses another woman being forced into a car. Garfin gives chase, only to find her dead and disfigured beneath the wheels of a large truck on Highway 20. At first he sees no connection between the two- but Garfin's pursuit of the truth shows they are inextricably linked by vice on the highest floors of the swankiest Sherbrooke Street apartments.

It was cold; bitterly paralysingly cold. There was a dampness in the air that bit into the marrow of your bones and stayed there. The red in the thermometer was below zero and still dropping steadily, and the weather forecasts offered no immediate hope of a let up. The city lay rigid under the stiffening blanket of snow. The air as you breathed it felt solid. A raw novel of sex and drugs in the years just before rock 'n' roll, Hot Freeze moves from the highest Westmount mansion to the lowest Montreal gambling joint and nightclubs. Its hero is Mike Garfin, a man who got kicked out of the RCMP for sleeping with the wife of a suspect. Recreating himself as an "inquiry agent", Mike takes on what looks to be an easy job, shadowing a bisexual, teenaged son of privilege who is throwing around more money than his allowance allows. But the boy disappears. Others soon follow, and Garfin's world becomes a lonelier place. First published in February 1954 as a Dodd, Mead Red Detective Mystery title, Hot Freeze enjoyed second and third lives as a Reinhardt hardcover and a Popular Library paperback. In 1955, a French translation, Mon cadavre au Canada, became part of Gallimard's Serie noir. This Ricochet Books edition is the first in sixty years.

CRIME & MYSTERY. A strange mixture of power, tension, and torment, Waste No Tears is a shocking expose of social evils with a forceful message for both sexes. Ignored by some critics, dismissed by others, this novel about the abortion racket is the stuff of legend: Hugh Garner claimed that it had been written in 10 days as part of a struggle to ward off incipient starvation; he was paid $400 for his efforts. Dark and disturbing, the story is a kind of memoir penned by Tom Matterson, a Cabbagetown son who spends 20 years making the 10-block journey from the street of his birth to skid row. Told from the perspective of its male narrator, the novel contains lurid descriptions of rapacious sex and harrowing depictions of death, boozing, brawling, blackmail, and back alley abortions. In Waste No Tears , the men are always tight and the women loose, and it is this downward spiral of sexual incontinence and drunken regret that propels the novel toward its morality-play conclusion.