Pick Up A Pulp [50]: THE NAKED LIGHT by James Moffatt

When I picked up The Naked Light at a secondhand bookstore, I thought I was getting another title from Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks from Hell; the synopsis leads the reader down a path of horror involving satanic ritual, human sacrifice, and seedy starlets in a perverse Hollywood drug scene.    

A horror novel this is not. 

The Naked Light is pure pulp circa 1970's complete with wanton women, chauvinistic men, and a plot with murder and sex at its core. What's missing is the stereotypical lone wolf private eye who drinks too much and beds too few (for his liking), instead, we're treated to an overtly sexual and highly intellectual Hollywood film studio publicist in Lucy Christian who has taken it upon herself to kinda find out who killed who. 

Which brings me to the killing bit. 

The book opens with a satanic ritual of sorts but it's really an excuse for a bunch of Hollywood stars to dabble in debauchery by virtue of a mass orgy. If anything, the cult angle is tokenistic at best; the means to an end in a half hearted effort to make the reader think there's some otherworldly sinister shenanigans at play. Its here, among the river of bodily fluids and naked mounds that a mass murder takes place.

With Mermaid Pictures loosing some of its most billable stars, Lucy is sent to semi-investigate the deaths of behalf of the studio, but moreso, to spin a cover-up which will posthumously turn one of said seedy starlets into a martyr. Why? So the studio can release pre recorded films starring the dead actors without any major fan backlash due to their questionable hobbies of the flesh. 

Think of every kind of pulp character stalwart and you'll find it here (excluding the private eye). It's as if author James Moffatt swallowed a bunch of sleaze pulps and vomited out a single story which attempted to contain every single element without really mastering any given one. 

Now I know, this review paints the book in a bad light, and, truth be told, I rate it a solid 2.5/5 stars but it's actually not that bad. I like pulps and didn't mind this one. Lucy is a great character and by far the highlight of the book. Had the author focused more on condensing the threads, this could've been much better. 

Other pulps with similar themes include:

Pick Up A Pulp [18]: The Passionate Pagan by Carter Brown 

Pick Up A Pulp [48]: Devil, Devil by Michael Avallone