Marty Holland’s The Glass Heart/The Sleeping City

Marty Holland’s novel The Glass Heart was published in 1946. Her novella The Sleeping City was written in 1952. They’ve been issued in a single volume by Stark House.

Marty Holland was a pseudonym used by Mary Hauenstein (1919-1971) and in The Glass Heart she serves up a some noirness and a whole lot of craziness.

Curt Blair is your typical noir drifter, getting by as a petty thief. Taking refuge from the cops he talks himself into a handyman job with the middle-aged Mrs Block. He intends to stay a day or so. Then he figures out that the old girl must be loaded. She boasts that her house in Hollywood is worth fifty-five thousand dollars (an immense amount of money in 1946) plus she owns a ranch and a beach house. Curt figures that if he sticks around he might be able to get his hands on some of that money.

Mrs Block is however both shrewd and tightfisted. Curt loses interest, until he meets Mrs Block’s new lodger. Lynn is very cute. Curt figures he’ll stick around a bit longer.

Things get more complicated when Lynn, who is being cheated by Mrs Block, finds another young woman to share the rent with her. Elise is blonde and very pretty but a bit odd. She talks to her fiancée a lot, which is a bit strange since he’s been dead for two years. Elise is a wild-eyed preacher lady and she’s about to take up her duties in her new church. Curt if put off by her at first, but those cute blonde curls and that shapely body attract his interest more and more.

Curt is a sucker for cute dames and now he’s stringing two of them along, and Mrs Block as well.

And then he makes his discovery in the cellar.

Curt now knows he has away of getting his hands on some of that money but he’s getting drawn into dangerously crazy situations. One crazy female can be a problem, but two of them adds up to real trouble.

Curt is amoral and he’s a bit of a sleazebag but he’s getting badly out of his depth.

The plot twists are pretty wild.

I’m not sure I’d describe this as full-blown noir but it’s certainly noirish and it’s fairly enjoyable.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the author was very young when she wrote this novel. The Sleeping City appeared six years later and it’s a much more assured and more tightly-constructed story.

This is a heist story. Wade is an undercover cop who has infiltrated a gang who are planning something big. The cops don’t know what the job is - finding that out is Wade’s assignment. It turns out to be very big and very ambitious indeed. The heist is being planned by an ageing mobster named Louie Thompson.

The heist story is solid but the main interest is provided by Madge. She’s Thompson’s girlfriend. As you might expect from a woman author we get a female character here with some complexity. On one level Madge is your typical gangster’s moll, a hardboiled ex-whore. But she cries a lot. She thinks Thompson is a swell guy. He’d like to marry her. She thinks that would be pretty good. She wouldn’t mind having kids. There’s just one thing. She can’t stand having sex with him. Actually there’s a second problem. She despises him. Madge wants to get out of the life she’s leading, and yet she doesn’t. She’s a complicated girl. She’s tough and hardbitten and she’s a frightened lonely little girl.

Wade has a sweetheart, named Betty. Betty is a great girl. They’re saving up to get married but they’re already sleeping together. This is a story that takes a grown-up view of sex, and of female sexual desire. They’re sleeping together because Betty needs Wade in her bed right now.

Of course Wade and Madge get involved. Wade can’t stop himself. Maybe it’s those too-tight dresses she wears, or the fact that it’s very obvious that she’s a girl who doesn’t bother with bras. Or panties either for that matter. And she has a luscious body. The attraction is mutual. Wade is a big strong healthy male. Madge approves of that. This is going to complicate things. He’s a cop. He has a job to do. But he can’t stop thinking about how great Madge is in bed. And that frightened lonely little girl thing she has going does something to him. Suddenly he’s forgotten all about Betty.

It’s the Wade-Madge relationship that provides the real noirness here. Madge is not a stock-standard femme fatale but Wade is definitely a noir protagonist.

One thing I have to say about Marty Holland - her endings are odd but interesting and slightly unexpected. The Glass Heart is intriguing if slightly flawed. The Sleeping City is top-notch erotic noir. This volume is a highly recommended purchase.