William Vance’s Bait

Bait is a sleaze novel with a hint of noir by William Vance (writing as George Cassidy) published in 1962.

Melody Frane is an itinerant farm worker in her late teens. Her mother is a drunk and a whore. Melody is constantly trying to avoid the attentions of men but with a body like hers it’s a losing battle. She’s working on a farm which is part of the vast business empire of Harry Ransome.

When company pilot Kenney Ward tries to make her in the cockpit of his plane her problem is that she wants him to stop, but her body definitely doesn’t want him to stop. She wants to be a good girl but she hungers for love and she hungers for men.

She gets herself fired and realises she doesn’t have too many good options. She has no education to speak of. She has no social polish. She has no skills. She has one possibly useful asset - her luscious body.

Then she attracts the attention of the company boss, Harry Ransome. After having sex with her he offers to employ her as his secretary. She is puzzled by this - she cannot type or take shorthand, in fact she has no office skills. Her assures that this won’t be a problem - he’ll send her to Las Vegas for training. Mrs Matthews will take care of her. She accepts the offer.

Melody is naïve but she knows what men want and she realises that being Harry’s mistress will be part of the deal. Had she known that Harry Ransome was married alarm bells might have started ringing. On the other hand she enjoyed the sex with him.

She becomes more puzzled when the training involves no shorthand or typing. Slowly it dawns on her that she is being trained as a courtesan. She is shocked. She thinks of herself as a good girl (despite her propensity for hopping into bed with men). And it does seem like she will be well paid. She likes that idea.

Kenney meanwhile has decided he wants to save her and marry her. She’s not sure about the marriage idea but he is awfully good in bed. Kenney means to win her but Harry Ransome is not likely to relinquish such a useful asset and such a satisfactory bed companion.

There was a considerable crossover between the sleaze, noir and hardboiled genres in the 50s and early 60s. There were noir novels with generous helpings of sleaze and there were sleaze novels with a very noirish flavour. Bait falls into the latter category.

The sleaze elements are very coy even for 1962. There’s not even a hint of even mildly graphic sex. The shock value comes from what would at the time have been considered moral depravity. Melody has a lot of sex. The real shock factor is that she enjoys it.

What makes this novel interesting is the moral ambiguity. There are are no real villains. Kenney’s attempted seduction of Melody in the plane goes way beyond seduction. He intends to take her by force. But he’s one of the good guys. Harry Ransome exploits Melody but she gives herself to him willingly and she’s also willing to be exploited, at least up to a point. He’s not quite an out-and-out villain and to some extent he’s driven by pressure to keep his head above water in a cutthroat business world, and by an unsatisfying marriage.

Melody is a nice girl who causes most of her own problems through her extraordinary mixture of innocence, greed for the good things in life and wantonness. She’s a good girl but if a man is nice to her she’ll drop her panties in a trice.

To the extent that this is borderline noir Melody is both the noir protagonist and the femme fatale. Her stunningly impressive bust measurement, her healthy sexual appetite and her tendency to defend her virtue in a very half-hearted manner make her a dangerous young lady.

The author is aiming for a bit of complexity rather than a god vs evil story.

Bait pulls its punches a bit but it’s a fairly enjoyable potboiler. Recommended. It’s available in paperback from Black Gat Books.