Hell-Bent (First Edition) by Ames, H.B - 1952

Woodford Press, 1952. Very Good. First Edition, small octavo hardcover in jacket. Possibly Helen B. Ames, who wrote "A Curtain Call for the Suds" (Pictorial Review, December 1934), this title reprinted by Beacon Books (1958). New Orleans local marries NY stud, and romance leads her to Miami Beach, Hollywood, and Havana. Uncredited jacket art features blonde in low-cut top against ghostly male apparitions, and a smaller scarlet alter-ego. Very Good Plus in Very Good Plus jacket, light bumps, a few tiny stains to the top page edges, and jacket lightly rubbed and toned.Hardcover sleaze (hard-boiled romance novels lacking certain 4-letter words) hit the masses in 1930s, later published in 1950s by Arco, Argyle, Balzac, Brookwood, Key, Signature, Vixen, Woodford Press, many being conglomerates or managed by same individuals, notably Signature and Woodford Press. Jack Woodford, sleaze pioneer and Baltimore mainstay, successfully wrote about writing, publishing, romantic pulp fiction, employing a number of pseudonyms.