Gat Heat

Title: Gat Heat
Genre: Suspense Fiction
Author: Richard S. Prather (1921-2007)
Illustrator: Uncredited
Publisher: Pocket Books, New York, New York
Series: “A Shell Scott Novel”
Year: 1971 (sixth paperback edition of a book published by Trident Press in 1967)
Pages: 186
Format: Paperback, mass-market format.
Provenance: Rubber stamp from Humphrey’s Paperback Book Exchange in Glendale, Arizona inside back cover.
Opening Sentence: “‘Sex,’ she said.”
Random Passage: “Only a short drive north of Beverly Hills, it was, like the Bel Air Hotel not far away, in a very woodsy setting with lots of trees and bosky growth all around, a sylvan landscape where one might expect poets to brood, but where, in fact, the high-powered well-to-do—industrialists, members of the board, company presidents, bankers, and numerous Hollywood producers, directors, writers, stars and even starlets—relaxed and played.”
Goodreads Description of Shell Scott: “A Southern California private eye, 6-foot-2 ex-marine with a head of white hair and white eyebrows, he was featured in three dozen novels published over a span of nearly 40 years.”
Goodreads Review: “Picked this up at my local purveyors ‘bag sale.’ Stuff a provided brown bag with as many books as you can fit for $15. Original sticker price $1. Picked it up mostly for the cover and the ‘noir’ feel. It was fun and breezy. Read it in a day. Worth the less than a $1 investment. However I won’t go searching for any others in the series. I would re-read the AA Fair series with Donald Lam and Bertha Cool instead.” — Jen, November 12, 2018.
Notes: Gat Heat was the 33rd of 40 Shell Scott detective novels written by Prather. In a contrast with many other multi-book detectives, the masculine, white-haired Mr. Scott remained the same age (30) throughout the entire series.