I think the nominations are getting altogether too literary
. I'll nominate the crime noir
No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase. Another book I read as a schoolboy, and one that provoked a great deal of controversy in its time.
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This novel is now widely regarded as one of the top thrillers of the last century. When it was originally published it pushed the social boundaries of the time through its relentless exploration of crime and sexual exploitation. Unlike most crime novels of that era, the characters are rich, deeply realized portraits of those who lived on the fringes of society during the Great Depression -- namely the gangsters, their women, and the men who hunted them. The novel broke sales records when published and has gone onto to sell over four million copies worldwide. Historically important, such literary greats as George Orwell and Graham Greene instantly recognized its merits. In a lengthy essay that securely placed NO ORCHIDS in an honored position in crime fiction, George Orwell wrote that, "In a book like NO ORCHIDS one is not, as in the old-style crime story, simply escaping from dull reality into an imaginary world of action. One's escape is essentially into cruelty and sexual perversion...a brilliant piece of writing, with hardly a wasted word or a jarring note anywhere."
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