John Theodore Stratton (1902-1984) wrote many shorts stories and novels, many under pseudonyms (including Chet Kinsey, Thomas Stone, and Terry Spain), while working as a teacher and varsity football coach in Ridgewood, New Jersey.
"Shameless Honeymoon" is a brisk, emotionally sharp story of desire, bad decisions, and the moment a young woman stops letting other people steer her life.
Kate wants out—out of her parents’ beatings, out of Newark, out of the gray grind of her teenage life. But freedom comes at a price. Lured by a sleazy truck driver with promises of glamour, she winds up in a rundown motel north of New York—and in the middle of a blackmail and baby-selling racket run by the sinister Mrs. Wembley.
In the small New Jersey town of Arden, private eye Mack Barry—war-scarred, cynical, and itching for a new fight—takes on a case that feels like a personal crusade. A grieving father hires him to find the “fat cat” pushing drugs that drove his daughter to suicide.
