The Chase Legacy

‘One Bright Summer Morning’ is one of James Hadley Chase’s best books I think. This prolific and wonderful story teller had his books marred by skimpy babes on the rather lurid covers. One reason why your hand extended to pick them up; one reason why you hesitated to hold them aloft while reading them as a teen.

Yet, his books have been the most captivating, delving deep into criminal minds, their impulses and of course, mostly always they got their just desserts. But the story telling and the plots were without exception masterly and Chase is an un-anointed classic story teller about the darker side.

Last week at my friendly neighbourhood bookshop, ‘Words and Worths’ I stumbled upon these books with lurid covers, with production values akin to pirated versions that you see on pavement vendor’s shelves and uneven, uneasy fonts/production values.

Curiosity got the better of me (the same curiosity that helped me discover and buy Ashok Banker’s ‘Ten Dead Admen’/’The Iron Bra’ and ‘Murder & Champagne’ as a set of three for a sum of Rs.50 many years ago), especially since the author of these obviously crime novels with was Dr. L. Prakash, the doctor who is counting his time behind bars in a pornography case. Below his name is the blurb “India’s Most Prolific Author” attributed to Outlook.

The back covers are very candid. They carry his photograph as well as a brief profile and his life imprisonment and the fact that he ‘scribbles away’ his novels in Puzhal Prison. And his publisher? – Banana Books based in Triplicane.

Curiosity won. The books were expensive, for their kind of quality, close to about Rs.200 each. I fell into ‘Tangled Web’ a narrative about a new kid in town, the murder of a starlet and a whodunit that echoed a ‘Chasey’ feel. Curiously, the language was clumsy, but the plot and narrative held together in a strange atmosphere of suspense. Words were used wrongly in contexts; crème substituted cream in one place and automotive substituted automobile. But in our very Indian way, one understood the substitutions and went on with it. The plot stood the test of suspense and held on to the very end. You even kind of empathized with the hero, who actually is not very likeable; hoping he would get out of his entanglement. All very evocative (mind you nowhere near the class or the mindgames that Chase novels depict) but somewhere, I should say reminiscent.

I have just begun his next ‘Maybach Maiden’(yes, that is the title) which unsurprisingly is about a Gutka/Paan Masala tycoon who gifts his daughter a Maybach – rings a bell?

The point of this blog actually, is that all this made me curious about James Hadley Chase. Now Dr. Prakash’s understanding of crime and criminals in his novels one supposes, were enhanced by his time in prison. Making you wonder if Chase himself had a brush with the law? Or was he ever in law enforcement? How else could he figure out a Riff and a Chita or a Helga Rolfe?

I googled – he seemed to have been a very reclusive writer. One interesting fact I found is that some part of his young life he spent in Calcutta.
Now only his books with the dated babes on the cover stand out. Btw, invariably the babes are the only sex that the books see. Chase’s novels invariably are clinically criminal.