Review: The Tigress (Payoff for Paula) - Jeff Bogar (Ronald Wills Thomas)

Jeff Bogar was the pseudonym British author Ronald Wills Thomas used for a couple of dozen mysteries and thrillers between 1950 and 1955, most of them published in England by Hamilton & Company. Several of them made their way to the United States for American editions, including two published by Lion Books. Thomas’s novel PAYOFF FOR PAULA was published in paperback by Lion in 1951 under the title THE TIGRESS, and I recently read my copy of that edition. That’s it in the scan. I don’t know who did the art.

The narrator/protagonist of THE TIGRESS is Hollywood talent agent Greg Farley, who represents a number of up-and-coming young starlets. Greg is a real rarity in the movie business, a nice guy who doesn’t try to take advantage of his young female clients. But one of them suddenly turns on him unexpectedly, attacking him verbally in a nightclub where they run into each other, and when she turns up dead later that same night, stabbed to death, Greg is the only real suspect. Which means, of course, that he has to dodge the cops and uncover the real killer in order to clear his name.

This murder launches several days of whirlwind action that involves mobsters, gamblers, nightclub owners, a fortune in missing gems, and several beautiful women, including the stunning redhead Paula of the original British title. Greg, a former vaudevillian, uses the skills he learned on that circuit and his Hollywood connections to navigate this dangerous investigation, which finds him getting hit on the head and knocked out more than once in classic hardboiled fashion. Eventually, he untangles everything and solves the starlet’s murder, along with another killing later on.

This is the sort of yarn I’ve read hundreds, if not thousands, of times, but I always enjoy it if it’s well-written, and THE TIGRESS mostly is. The plot gets a little muddled now and then, and there are occasional reminders that the author is British and not American. But Thomas does a good job overall. The plot, the beautiful babes, the fast-paced banter, and the breezy style all remind me very much of the Carter Brown books. Not done as well as Alan G. Yates did, mind you, but still, that’s the sort of book this is, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I have the other Jeff Bogar novel published by Lion Books and probably will get around to reading it in the relatively near future.