Body and Passion

I'm still reading the trade paperbacks that reprint Brian Azzarello's very hardboiled comic book series 100 BULLETS. One of them, THE COUNTERFIFTH DETECTIVE, features as its protagonist a private eye who is so badly injured in a car wreck that his face is covered with bandages.

That immediately reminded me of one of my favorite novels by the great Harry Whittington, writing in this case as Whit Harrison. It has a very striking cover, which you can see above, and a fascinating plot. Allow me to quote from the blurb inside the front cover:

Out of a flaming holocaust which had been an isolated fishing shack walked the figure of a man . . . a man who had no features that were recognizable, no memory of who he was or what he had done. He might be a brilliant young lawyer with a future of glory and riches waiting for him. Or he might be a man wanted for murder, with nothing waiting for him but the electric chair . . . and the whole-hearted, unswerving devotion of a beautiful young girl. They called him X, and they left him to work out his fate in a morass of ambition and greed.

Now, if you can read that and not want to dive right into the story, you're made of sterner stuff than I am.