All the elements of a classic rural noir are present here, including solid prose. Still, Brenda just didn’t do it for me. When characters behave so illogically it breaks the suspension of disbelief and leaves you disconnected from the action and its intended emotional response, it’s too much. That’s Brenda, Boyce, Conrad, Frances, and even several of the secondary characters.
Conrad returns home from Korea to the farm where his Uncle Boyce and now deceased Aunt Norma, raised him. Boyce is blindly infatuated with the decades-younger, hottie, Brenda, who is adamant to prove she can seduce and scorch any man she chooses—even if it requires wedlock. Boyce is exasperatingly old school, and somehow believes he can return to eking out an existence via dawn-to-dusk farm work with city babe Brenda transformed from playgirl into hard-working farmer’s wife overnight. Brenda breaks that mold in a New York minute, and even turns her seductive sonar onto Conrad. Oh, what a tangled mess she weaves!
Originally, written under the pen name Lehi Zane, Brenda, was first published by Gold Medal in 1952. Taylor also wrote three detective novels, all featuring PI Neal Cotton, for Dutton/Signet from 1950 to 1953.