By EDWARD D. WOOD, JR. (Sundown Reader; 1966)

A somewhat early novel by the inimitable Ed Wood, drafted before alcoholism permanently addled his brain and writing abilities.  SIDE-SHOW SIREN (a misleading title, courtesy of the publisher, who disliked its original moniker NAKED BONES) is believed to have been the first of Wood’s many carnival-themed novels, and contains a convincingly detailed depiction of a travelling circus—with the emphasis being, naturally, on the freak show.

Set down in surprisingly coherent, grammatically correct prose (unusual attributes for a late sixties Wood novel), it opens in true Ed Woodian fashion, with a nonfiction disclaimer advising us that “The amount of anxiety evoked by crime, and especially violent crime, is such that one is tempted to feel that its roots lie deep,” with Sigmund Freud and Jack the Ripper referenced to bolster this non-point.  From there we’re plunged into a lurid account of a nocturnal prison break perpetrated by Clay and Charlie, two sociopathic cons.  Before the night is through these two loons will have stolen and crashed a police car, leaving Charlie dead.

Clay stows away on a carnival train whose other passengers include a singularly sleazy bunch of men.  They include Pat O’Hara, who’s in charge of the carnival’s gambling concessions; Herlie Berlie, who oversees the girlie tent; Jinx Dixon, who mans a sharp-shooting exhibit; and Duke Conners, who runs the freak show.  Conners is particularly excited about a new attraction: an “abominable snowman” named Kari, a mentally impaired giant who becomes the primary suspect in a string of murders whose victims include a judge whose mangled corpse is left to molder on a Ferris wheel seat, a police sergeant impaled by an antique sword in an African exhibit and a district attorney found strapped to a carousel horse.

There are other suspects, including a sheriff who becomes unhealthily obsessed with the case and Donna, the freak show’s half-man half-woman (who provides the requisite transgender angle), as well as the aforementioned Clay, who spends much of the novel offstage but exerts a sizeable influence on its happenings.  More murders follow, of course, as well as a break-in to the girlie show tent, a death-defying climb to the top of the Ferris wheel and a supremely hokey gunpoint confession.

It’s all suitably sleazy and exploitive, at least by 1960s standards (it would take a take another couple years for Wood to really let loose in the sex and violence department).  The surprise is, again, how cannily written and plotted SIDE-SHOW SIREN is.  At its best it attains the heights of second-tier Jim Thompson, while at its worst it reads like—well, like an Ed Wood, Jr. novel.