No Orchids For Miss Blandish

by James Chase

Exciting, hard-hitting and gruesome by turn, this 1939 novel delivers violent, bloody fiction. American heiress Miss Blandish is kidnapped by a gang of inept criminals trying their hand at big-time crime. Their plans are foiled when a rival mob, led by the sadist Slim Grisson, set their sights on the glamorous million-dollar hostage. Meanwhile, Private Detective Dave Fenner is hired to rescue her. Fenner is no stranger to the criminal underworld. If corruption and violence are necessary, Fenner will do what it takes to get the job done. Behind the scenes, Slim becomes obsessed with his hostage, lashing out at anyone who attempts to wrestle Miss Blandish from his charge. When Fenner makes his move, Slim won't give her up without a fight.
The narration of Jeff Harding, a prolific American actor and audiobook reader, injects new energy into this fast-paced crime classic.

• ISBN10: 1906147817
• ISBN13: 9781906147815
• Publish Date: 14 March 2011
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 1 October 2014
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
• Imprint: CSA WORD
• Edition: Main
• Format: Audiobook (CD)
• Duration: 6 hours and 40 minutes
• Language: English

Reviews

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

Dave Fenner has been hired to find Miss Blandish, kidnapped three months ago; the police have not found her despite the ransom being paid. The suspected kidnappers have disappeared, but the heiress is in the hands of Ma Grisson and her scary henchman Slim, who has wiped out their rivals and taken possession of the girl. The closer Fenner gets the more horrifying the situations appears; in No Orchids for Miss Blandish.

James Hadley Chase has a written a very raw book with No Orchids for Miss Blandish and you can see the obvious James M Cain influence though out this book. But you can’t really fault Chase for that, Cain was a master at noir and it feels like he has taken the genre to a whole new level. For a book written in 1938 I was surprised to see how violent and sexualised this novel is. But on reflection there was no real mention, Chase just hints very obviously and leaves the rest to the reader’s imagination.

From the very start this book hooks you in and takes you on a very dark journey. Written in three viewpoints you get an interesting perspective of what is going on. This was a gruesome depiction of gang life that puts a lot of the noir successors to shame; James Hadley Chase knows how to hit hard with his disturbing characters, fast pace and realistic violence.

Sure, this book may travel into the realms of predictable but this book moves so fast you don’t have time to stop and think about that. Dave Fenner has the makings of a good protagonist and I can’t wait to see where Chase takes him. There are actually two versions of No Orchids for Miss Blandish, the 1938 version which I was lucky to have read and the 1962 revision, because James Hadley Chase thought the world of 1939 too distant for a new generation of readers. When I get a chance I plan to read the revised edition; I’ve heard that it doesn’t really lose any of the raw and realism but it does have the odd mention of televisions.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/02/06/book-review-no-orchids-for-miss-blandish/