Tag Archives: Charity Blackstock

Pulp Friday: Monkey on a Chain by Charity Blackstock

“Revenge or hate? She didn’t know which – but something irresistible was drawing her to Bangkok to confront her brother’s killer.”

Today’s Pulp Friday contribution, Monkey on a Chain, is going to be short and sweet because I’ve got a mountain of writing deadlines at the moment.

This edition of Monkey on a Chain was published by MacFadden Bartell Books, one of the large US pulp publishers in the fifties and sixties. It was written by Charity Blackstock, a pseudonym for Paula Alladyce, who wrote over 20 crime and historical romance pulp novels between 1950 and 1981. She also used the names Ursala Today and Charlotte Keppel.

By the sound of the back cover blurb, Monkey on a Chain might have been one of Alladyce’s racier offerings.

“A journey into hate. 

Sue Douglas left her husband and children to seek out the man who had killed her beloved twin brother twenty years before in a prison camp on the notorious River Kwai. All she knew was his name and that he lived in Bangkok.

Sue stalked her quarry everywhere in the steamy, exotic city – including its brothels – until the night she met him by chance and realised suddenly that her life would never be the same. 

A torturous love-hate relationship developed between them which reached a shattering climax at her brother’s grave on the River Kawi…”Read more