Desert Town — Ramona Stewart

DESERT TOWN is dark crime fiction for those who have a taste for the perverse and violent. It was made into a major film, DESERT FURY, starring Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott and Mary Astor. It's the story of seventeen year old Paula Haller's transition into womanhood as she defies her mother, Fritzi's dominance. Fritzi runs the small town of Chuckawalla including the Purple Sage casino and saloon as well as a bordello or two. Fritzi can control everything but Paula and the tension between the two is drawn as tight as a drum. The scenery includes sprawling ranches, a very much out of place colonial mansion and the vast beauty of the desert. Mix in a notorious gangster, his insanely jealous torpedo, a love triangle, the town sheriff, some weirdly eccentric characters and innuendo aplenty. Once the sun brings all these ingredients to a boil you've got the backdrop for a noir setting like no other.