Two names, one author in “Candyland”
Evan Hunter has been writing a long time, since 1954 when “The Blackboard Jungle” hit the stores. Ed McBain started out in 1956 with “Cop Hater.” Different names, same writer. So someone at Simon and Schuster had the idea of having the each writer approach the same story from different angles, Hunter the more personal, sexual side; McBain from the cop procedural tangent. The result is “Candyland,” which shares characters in what is billed as “a novel in two parts.”Ben Thorpe is a wealthy, successful architect in New York City on business. He is a veteran of the sex game as it is played in America, and he winds up with a smashed face after a failed menage des trois. He is a veteran at the game and even has a
phone-sex lady friend in NYC. After being tossed out of one brothel he is rescued by an aging hooker who has a soft heart. He returns to California not much wider but a lot poorer and needing new teeth.The story then switches to the cops’ side of things and the McBain dialogue, cop-wise with insights into how the police dig and dig and finally tie Thorpe to a murder.No details are needed; this is an interesting experiment in fiction that shows how Hunter can change the game at will.The first part is a bite steamy, but pretty standard stuff these days, when the wife of the South Carolina governor is suing for divorce and telling all about her spouses’s sexual foibles in her new book.“Candyland” is available at the Carson City Library.