April North

THOSE BOYS AND THEIR CARS...Danny Duncan drives his father's Oldsmobile. It's a nice respectable family sedan, and April North is every bit as respectable as the car. Until he manages to get her into the back seat. Now she's no longer a good girl, but only Danny know it, and he can keep a secret, can't he?Well, no. He tells half the town of Antrim, Ohio-the male half, and they all come sniffing around, led by Bill Piersall, driving a homemade hot rod cobbled together from spare parts and held together with spit and baling wire. She gives Bill what he wants, but he turns out to be harder to shake than a summer cold, until a Mercedes 300 SL screeches to a stop, with Craig Jeffers at the wheel. He has money and class and sophistication, and just about everything but a functioning moral compass.And, you know, things happen...April North, April North. A friend of mine thought enough of Mae West to write a book with a heroine he called June East, and I gave the compass and the calendar a further spin. Thus April North, and the name does have a certain lilt to it, doesn't it? Beacon Books thought so, evidently; this was Sheldon Lord's first book for them, and they liked the title enough to keep it, and the reading public liked the book enough to spark a second and third printing. None of this did much for the author, who got a flat fee of $600 for the book. Or maybe it was $750. It's hard to remember, after all these years... This paperback edition of APRIL NORTH reproduces the original cover, as painted by Al Rossi.