Academic Noir: Four Full Novels By ///

Four novels of crime, betrayal, sex and murder in the halls of Academia.

Integration of Maybelle Brown by Bonnie Golightly

A small town in the deep south is rocked to its racist core Maybelle Brown arrives from Philadelphia to live with her grandmother…and becomes the first black student ever enrolled in the local college. But that’s only the beginning of the explosive problems her arrival creates. Because Maybelle also becomes romantically involved with a white man, crossing an unthinkable line in a community terrified that a rising tide of color will destroy their heritage.

First Person, Third Sex by Sloane Britain

t’s 1959. Janet and Paula meet as teaching students and decide to move in together when they get jobs at a school in the same small town. Their friendship develops into something deeper and more intimate for them both.. Paula has been romantically involved with women before, but this same-sex attraction is new, exciting and unsettling for Janet. It’s a relationship that leads them both to discoveries and challenges they never expected.

“A deeply personal account of a third grade teacher’s discovery of her ‘third sex’ passion and desire of a ‘twilight woman.’ First Person, Third Sex breaks away from the genre norm of lesbian paperbacks in that it ends on a gay-positive note, rather than having the protagonist meet with tragedy for her sins of the flesh or meet a male she falls head over heels with, marries, and lives forever after in heterosexual marital bliss. ” Those Sexy Vintage Sleaze Books Blog

“Another odd debut came in 1959, when Sloane M. Britain’s first novel, First Person, Third Sex, appeared. It was a welcome change to read about people with mature concerns such as jobs and futures. This book was so good that the many poor titles which later came from the pen of Sloane Britain are not explainable ” Tangents Magazine

Wind Sprints by Ralph Dennis

In the late 1960s, a balding, over-weight, heavy-drinking writer struggles to find his place in the literary/academic worlds of Yale and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, while desperately trying to figure out why all of his relationships with women, romantically and otherwise, seem doomed from the start.

The book includes introductions by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Goldberg and by Ralph’s close friend Ben Jones, the Dukes of Hazzard actor and former U.S. Congressman from Georgia.

“It’s written, if not with self-loathing, a certain disdain. It’s not a flattering portrait of the narrator. Sure, it’s an uncomfortable read, but it’s also a poignant one. What is clear, though, is Dennis’ voice, his noirist temperment, and signs of the style that made his later novels crime classics. Discovering this novel and bringing it to the public was clearly a labor of love and it’s truly to be applauded. Dennis never got his due in his lifetime but damn, what a writer.” CrimeTimeUK FM

That Summer in Rome by Louis Lorraine

Seemingly frigid college professor Claire Frazier learns about love during a torrid summer of sex in Rome… then returns to her Georgetown campus as a new woman with a raging sensuality that radiates from her eyes, her walk, the sway of her body. She quickly seduces psychology professor Wayne Kincaid and young football star Jerry Arnold. She’s happy keeping them both on the hook to slake her desperate needs. But then her wild, erotic campus escapades are exposed and she’s caught in a whirlwind of passion, violence, and despair that could destroy her.

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